


they danced by the light of the moon

by delurks



Series: beyond the borderlands [11]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Borderlandscast, Friendship, Gen, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Loneliness, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trans Male Character, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-18 23:33:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 48,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7335475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delurks/pseuds/delurks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>vault hunting is one reason why people seek out pandora. sometimes, there is little choice in the matter for those sent over, wronged by the law or misfortune. some seek to study or make their fortune, trade or living on the planet. a few are simply running away, and pandora is perfectly placed to receive them without passing judgement.</p><p>rare is when one seeks atonement on a planet where it’s delivered with a bullet between the eyes. even rarer are those who willingly seek out pandora just because they can, for none of the above reasons. pandora means many things to people, most of them involving a litany of curses involving a skag’s unmentionables.</p><p>this is the story of how lomadia came to call pandora ‘home’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they danced by the light of the moon

**Author's Note:**

> boomsticks and punching! you know, the usual good stuff in the borderlands universe. there is one scene about talk of transitioning for a trans character. there are separate scenes featuring references to physical abuse and ptsd.
> 
> there’s also stuff involving implications of animal cruelty, animal abuse, plus hunting in regards to shooting and skinning creatures. also, there is atrocious dancing following the consumption of copious amounts of wine. please take care while reading.

Thunder comes in over the horizon with low, discontent rumbles, announcing the arrival of lightning with an entourage of dark grey storm clouds swelling with the weight of rain. Lomadia’s used to rain, of course. Rain is a fact of life. She has peacefully camped out under the stars and drifted into sleep to the pattering rhythm of a gentle downpour. 

On a handful of occasions, she’d barely been able to hold onto her tent as gale force winds attempted to wrestle the canvas from her hands and run wild with it as thunderclaps shook her surroundings and flashes of lightning lit up the night.

Those are but a few notable moments in her travels involving battles and stalemates with the weather. What she’s not used to is being caught in a sudden deluge. It soaks her from head to toe, courtesy of the storm coming in low above her. 

Thunder misses its first stage cue (perhaps too caught up in rehearsing the right moment to make its grand entrance, with showy lightning hanging off its arm) as the sky fragments.

One moment, Lomadia assumed that she’d be clear of it, safe, but importantly, dry under cover in the town she’s heading towards. In the next moment, she’s spluttering as the swollen clouds begin to dump rain on her, without any sort of generous warning. At least let her get under some sort of cover first, it’s only _fair_.

Raindrops spill from the sky, drenching everything they can reach: the cracked arid ground, drooping bushes with barely a hint of green left on straggling branches, weatherbeaten rocks caked with dust to the point of blending in with the scenery around them. Nothing is spared, including her.

The speed at which the rain falls is enough to fill a parched water tower in no time flat. Each drop is as large as an ink blot from a pen on its last legs, the cartridge finally coming loose from too many absent-minded gnawings.

The weather forecast is kind to leave out the possibility of dreaded hail. That would have been an issue closer to the mountain areas. Here, Lomadia is safe by way of walking along the coast.

It falls steadily with no signs of stopping. It’s a rain to remember then, a torrential force of grains of rice bouncing freely across a metal surface. If she wanted to be morbid, it’s reminiscent of gunfire, the sky finally carrying out its revenge on everything below it.

She’s not here to be morbid, she just wants to find somewhere decent to dry out before she dies of exposure. Out here, she’s at the risk of being caught off guard by a flash flood, if the rain keeps up its determined assault on the land.

A dismayed shriek from above announces that her rakk is also disliking being drenched. It swoops lower, casting a blurry shadow that’s lost to the muddy puddles gathering under her feet. The ground greedily drinks up the water almost as fast the sky can empty itself without a single pause.

Lomadia stands still as her rakk alights on her shoulders, wings folding around her. The fingerlike (more like thin claws) protrusions flex. The sound of the rain is muffled almost instantly, a distant pattering on leathery wings that act as an umbrella over her head. 

A downside of the temporary cover is that her shoulders sag; rakks are light fliers but rakks that are larger than the norm don’t exactly weigh next to nothing. There goes her dream of flying through the air, supported by two rakks underneath each foot.

Her rakk’s reptilian head (the purple mottled skin soft, almost scaly but with a texture closer to that of weatherbeaten leather) nuzzles against her face, seeking warmth. 

Lomadia stretches out a consoling hand to absently pat it. Her rakk’s crest rises and falls, the very picture of contentment in that second. Its long, deadly, spiny tail curls around her body, not quite touching the ground.

“Let’s get out of the rain, shall we?” She murmurs, more to herself than her companion. A low churring sound of agreement escapes her rakk. Its remarkable intelligence and basic capacity to understand human speech is both a boon and a nightmare to deal with, on her journeys.

Her rakk launches off her shoulders, wings snapping out to either side to ride the invisible currents higher into the sky. Her rakk never quites leaves her line of sight, almost always doubling around or turning circles in the sky. She suspects it’s keeping one eye out for any danger prowling closer and one eye trained on her tiny form from above.

If this is what the weather was going to be like, she should have spared herself the trouble of walking and taken a technical instead. Still, she resigns to keep trudging onwards. There’s a saying that exists about slowing so long as she never stops, no? Not that she’s ever found those sayings to be of help out here. Keeping her wits about her is much more sensible.

The map in her HUD points her towards the town of ‘Oasis’, a picturesque beachside town bordered by foothills and cliffs.

The sandworms will have long since burrowed underground to hide from all the moisture that dilutes their acid spit attacks. Threshers would be out in full, but even this much water proved too much for their liking. Everything else (including stalkers) will be out of the rain’s way.

Only plants and water reserves will enjoy the plentiful bounty. In a way, it’s beneficial, this rain. Lomadia has next to nothing to worry about, being stranded out in the open like this. She’s also not that foolish as to go around empty-handed.

The guns safely stored in her inventory would also serve as a deterrent for any prospective robber or predator. Her rakk also does nicely as a watchdog and possesses a nasty bite.

The route she’s taking is through a series of dried up gullies that were a creek once upon a time, the sides high enough to hide her from anybody seeking to rob her blind. 

All the rain’s layered a depressing grey wash over the land, muting the bold earthen colours underneath it. She feels like she’s walking through some sort of art movement, expecting her world to shift to black, white and grey any moment. It would certainly be interesting.

Jutting overhangs formed by scrub and oddly-shaped rocks above her head provide a few second’s worth of shelter. That’s a small blessing, though the doubt of getting soaked any further nags at her; her clothes are drenched all the way through.

Twenty minutes later, she finds herself emerging onto the rolling hills overlooking the town. Her rakk is wheeling higher into the darkening sky, an inconsequential blot against the clouds. 

In the horizon, the sun’s sinking lower and lower as she takes her first step towards the town, huffing up the steep slope. Mud and water snake down past her boots (urgh, even her socks are waterlogged).

There are lights on in the town, coming from several of the buildings. Cautious about coming any closer while there’s people about, Lomadia pats down her inventory for binoculars. A brief pause is allowed, by huddling under another overhang to peer into them. 

People are rushing home on the streets, trying their best to avoid getting wet. Books, bags and umbrellas are drawn up above heads. Sulky children sprint indoors after being yelled at by annoyed parents. Doors open and slam, causing shutters to rattle and doorways to jump.

In the corner of her eye, her rakk is perched atop a wilting palm tree, hunched over and watching the town as well. It shakes off its wings to fold them around its form, an overgrown bird of prey waiting patiently to strike.

Lomadia reaches into her HUD to survey the map of Oasis. There aren’t any abandoned buildings she can camp out in for the night, not without wanting to trespass (and some people could be awfully touchy about that, even if there’s plenty of room and she has money and food to spare). 

Bless her fortune, there’s a functional hotel. It’s based all the way on the edge of town, positioned nicely by the road leading to the highway. Promising, promising.

A surreptitious check of her funds reveal that she might be able to afford a brief stay. Hopeful that the rain will abate by the time her stay is up, Lomadia pulls up an ECHOnet tab. It proves unhelpful. Lomadia heaves the tiniest sigh; it looks like she’ll have to ask for prices in person.

“Come on,” She mutters to her rakk as it takes off to follow her down the hills, form bristling at having to enter an area full of humans. 

Humans meant great bouts of _noise_ , always flapping their hands to shoo it away, and its caretaker becoming occupied with trivial affairs. In its opinion, its human is better off alone.

Still, no rakk could survive all alone without a flock and so, with great reluctance, the rakk allows Lomadia to enter towns of her choosing without a (major) fuss. Besides, the presence of towns also meant being fed food without having to hunt.

At this point, Lomadia just be glad to get out of the rain for even a few minutes, starting to shiver as her clothes mold against her form. Her shield battery’s long since given up the ghost, offering little protection. 

The general store’s closed, giving no chance of buying new a battery to afford turning on ‘weather protection’ in her settings.

The town’s emptied of people by the time she’s descended. No stragglers to whisper, stare or point (always preferred). While all the curtains are drawn, she can feel curious gazes following her across the town square. 

The deep stone well in the center is beginning to overflow, water sloshing out the sides and pouring out onto the cobblestones around it.

Her boots splash from disturbing shallow puddles as she briskly treks to the hotel she’d seen. Here, the town’s wide streets contract into thin alleys for one person to walk without their elbows brushing the walls. It’s noticeably less welcoming. The walls tower well above her head. No eyes follow her once she steps into it.

The only light comes from single, flickering, yellow electric lamp perched above a creaking back door. Moths would have loved to throw a party around it, if any existed on Pandora to begin with. 

What’s odd is that the door is ajar, revealing a glimpse of shabby decor in the gap. There is a person standing in the alley several metres away, their gaze fixed on a rusting dumpster at the end of another alley across from them.

A halo of rain forms around the battered red umbrella sheltering them. Lomadia forgets about shivering from how intense their gaze is, as though they're trying to burn a hole through the metal with the power of their mind.

She stills at the entrance of the alley, concerned about what she might be interrupting. The aforementioned dumpster gives a sudden jerk and rattles on its four stubby legs. With that, the lid bounces up and down, hinges squealing with each erratic motion. The gummy chain on the side rattles, clanking on the metal sides.

Why haven’t they fled screaming yet? Her gaze slides from the dumpster to them. The scene is straight out of a horror story, one she’s about to witness firsthand.

The light reflecting off the person’s black glasses obscure his eyes. They haven’t noticed her yet, still focused on the dumpster. That is, until her boot accidentally nudges a rock. It noisily clatters as it rolls across the cobblestones.

Their head slowly turns to regard her with mild curiosity, nothing more than that to their gaze. One thin hand is clutching the bent, curved handle of the umbrella. They’re not a threat (yet). The lustre of a shiny object catches her eye as it reflects the light.

Squinting in the semi-darkness, Lomadia tries to see if it’s a weapon. It’s too limp, not angular or sharp enough to be a gun barrel or any sort of weapon she’s ever seen. It dawns on her that it’s a dead fish, glassy-eyed and scales glistening, mouth comically open in an ‘o’ shape to reveal several rows of pointed, curved teeth.

The lines of the figure’s body are determined. Feet shift on the stones towards the dumpster, their gaze having drifted back to the dumpster. The hand grasping the fish tightens.

Lomadia avoids kicking the rock that’d given her away as she steps closer to see why the dumpster is so interesting. Judging from the tinny growls echoing out of it, it’s likely a stalker that’d wedged itself in there while scavenging and gotten stuck.

Intervening meant interacting with humans. Most humans didn’t deserve to get mauled for being curious (and there are always exceptions).

“I’d step away from that dumpster if I were you,” She calls out, deciding to risk speaking if it’ll save them. That gets their attention. They glance in her direction, the tilt of their head awfully considering. Her brain smartly helps her out by connecting the fish and what liked to eat fish. “It’s not a cat in the dumpster, it’s something else.”

Immediately, their shoulders slump down, face falling. “Oh.” All their disappointment is perfectly conveyed in that one word. 

“Let me handle it,” is what Lomadia belatedly adds, moving in front of them to stop them from changing their mind and stupidly charging in.

They quickly step aside as she approaches, dripping rain and water everywhere with a brief twirl of their umbrella. She digistructs a gun from her inventory, one with the flavor of shock for its extra kick given.

“Step back,” Lomadia warns, now besides the growling dumpster.

They don’t need to be told twice, silently drawing to to the safety of the back door, watching curiously. 

She sucks in a shallow breath to prepare herself. Hopefully she won’t get hurt and have to use her last medkit. Her shield’s more for show at this point. It’s too bad that it’s not a human she’s dealing with.

Checking that her gun is loaded and aimed at the dumpster, Lomadia delivers a solid kick that causes a metallic sound to ring out in the alleyway.

Whatever is hiding in the dumpster falls silent, just for one second.

The dumpster lid bursts open to reveal an alarmed flurry of teeth, claws and a three pronged tail, scattering garbage and trash in every direction. The accompanying floral stench of rotting, sun-baked trash almost makes her gag but she sets her jaw and tries not to retch.

The stalker’s landed on the ground on all fours, its tri-tipped tail lashing this way and that in an agitated manner. It bares a mouthful of sharp teeth, wary and alert. Rain trickles down its form, sliding off its rough pin and orange spotted hide.

Grimacing, Lomadia fires a warning shot, deliberately aiming it so that it fizzles into the ground by a front, lethal curved claw. The stalker starts emitting a low, guttural sound that promises a bite. Staring it straight in the eye (or eyes, to be precise), she takes a giant step back to expose the opening of the alley behind her, giving it the option of either running or attacking her.

Stalkers usually didn’t strike out on their own so this one is probably having second thoughts about taking her on without ample backup.

Spotting the gun, the stalker bounds away but not towards the way out of the alley. It’s going for the figure holding the fish. Lomadia starts, her shots narrowly missing its tail as its jaws stretch wide.

The figure starts, tripping as they fall over the back step they’re standing on, flinging the dead fish at the stalker. The red umbrella falls from their hand, clattering on the pavement.

The stalker pauses to swallow the fish in one gulp, claws skittering on the slick stones and lunges, in satisfied jaws opening once more. The figure’s dropped to a crouch in an upright fetal position, a human rock.

Her rakk swoops down out of nowhere, clinging to a brick wall above the figure’s head. Its knobby head plunges down to shriek a warning at the stalker, with its massive wings spread out and head crest fully raised.

The stalker skids to a stop a metre away, shrinking and dares to roar out of being cheated out of a meal; her rakk utters another challenging shriek, wings stretching out even wider.

Daring it to ‘come and get some’.

Not willing to face an even bigger threat in the form of a giant rakk, the stalker turns and scampers past Lomadia, fleeing into the night.

Unable to believe that none of them have come to any harm, Lomadia turns her head to make sure that the stalker hasn’t just cloaked, still keeping her gun out. Pleased with having scared off a threat, her rakk happily churrs, fluttering onto a nearby rooftop.

Lomadia walks over to the umbrella on the ground and picks it up, giving it a small twirl to shake the rain off it. The figure’s risen, no longer hunched over in fright, wincing from having hit their back on the step.

Up close, they’re the same height as her. Neat shoulder-length black hair glistens from the rain. They’re regarding her with a mixture of awe and wariness, round face flushed. They fix their lopsided glasses with the inside of their elbow so it sits correctly on their nose.

“I believe this is yours,” She quietly says, offering the dropped, still open umbrella by the handle. It wouldn’t do to poke them in the eye by accident with the pointy end.

A blink tells her that they hadn’t expected her to do that. They carefully take it from her, collapsing it with a ‘whomp’ and flutter of plastic. They say in a hushed tone, “You didn’t have to go out of your way to help me.”

“You would have died. That stalker wasn't exactly any old stalker,” Lomadia simply states. Normal stalkers aren’t the size of dumpsters or took risks in sneaking around human inhabited areas to scavenge. “Why were you even standing near the dumpster?” She fixes them with a searching look, remembering how she’d found them.

The figure’s hands begin to fiddle with the scratched handle, gaze dropping to the ground. They mumble that might have sounded an awful lot like ‘I thought it was a cat in there’.

“There aren’t any cats on Pandora,” Lomadia begins incredulously, only for them to quickly shush her.

“I know but that doesn’t erase the possibility that there might just be one out there! The poor thing might get sick!” They tell her in a voice that would have invited argument from anyone who’d have dared to correct them. They look at her again. This time, they look grateful. “You look like you could use a place to stay for the night. I’ll let you stay for free in my hotel, if you want.”

Ah, so the hotel is his. The figure turns to walk to the still open back door, pushing it further open. They look expectantly at her. Lomadia decides to follow, stepping inside. She wipes her muddy boots as best as she can on the bushy welcome mat conveniently placed there.

The figure also does so. Given that they’re wearing thin sandals, they’re done several seconds before her, striding off down the hall. The folded up red umbrella is dumped into a stand.

The inside of the hotel is cosy and warm, if a little cramped like the alleys, the smell of rain still persisting. The flight of stairs only has enough room for one person to go up and down it at any one time. She counts the floors. Each floor apparently houses only a single room, based on the doors they pass. The figure leads her all to the very top floor without pausing once on the stairs.

There’s a green door there, plus another set of stairs leading up (probably to the roof). If she listens carefully, she can hear the rakk shuffling around outside it, preparing to roost.

Keys jingle as the figure fiddles with the green door, stepping into the room it unlocks. She steps in as well.

The room’s walls are painted a somber dark green. A single bed up against the wall is penned in by several wicker chairs pinning down a plush carpet. Overall, the room has a bright, lush feel to it.

What really stands out is the amount of cat pictures hanging from the walls that she ends up staring at, unsure what to make of it. There’s too many to count at a glance.

The sound of another door unlocking pulls her attention away. The only other door (painted a milky white) in the room leads to a small bathroom. To her delight, there’s a bathtub in there. The figure beams at the pleased look on her face, putting away their ring of assorted keys.

“Feel free help yourself to a warm bath. I’m Nilesy, the owner of this hotel, at your service.” Nilesy gives a low bow that causes his hair to fall over his face. He straightens up, tucking them back with both hands.

What does she say to that? She has no idea if she’s suppose to thank him or dismiss him; people on Pandora are usually a lot more rude and antisocial. It’s been years since she's stayed at a hotel. 

Did hotel owners usually do this sort of thing, personally leading people to their rooms and waited them on hand and foot?

Mind racing, Lomadia shifts on the spot. She’s getting water all over his nice wooden floor too. “I think I’ll take a bath,” She tells Nilesy, knowing that she sounds incredibly lame with how agreeable she’s being. 

They’re too generous; it’s only now that the consequences of her good deed is catching up to her. She’d have been better off camping under a rock or something.

It actually makes Nilesy look even happier, perking up with a bright grin on his face. “In that case, let me get you a bathrobe and a towel!” He enthusiastically offers. “What color would you like? I’m afraid I only have ones with a paw print pattern but they come in white, blue, green, pink, yellow-”

Lomadia latches onto the first option. “White, please,” She quickly decides.

“I’ll be back in just a moment.” Nilesy drifts out of the room. The instant he’s gone, Lomadia flees into the bathroom, only to ending up floored by how it looks. The bathroom is, for lack of a better word, exquisite.

The bathtub looks like it belongs in a five-star hotel and not one stuck out in the sticks. It’s a four footed, brass clawed thing with a rounded pie crust edge, as stark white as boiled bone. It takes up one whole tiled wall. A matching shower head sticks out of the wall above it.

Everything else such as the toilet, mirror, sink and towel racks take up the remaining walls. All of it is mismatched and clashes with the tub, hinting at having been scavenged in the past and refurbished.

How the heck Nilesy fit the enormous bathtub in through the door is a compelling mystery. Lomadia experimentally stretches both arms out: her fingertips don’t even brush the walls. This is probably the luxury suite, and it’s free.

There’s no time to gape, the impatient drip-drip of water reminding her what she came in here for. She hastily strips out of her drenched boots, socks and wet clothing (even her bra and underwear weren’t spared). 

Only when she’s climbed out of them does she realise that she doesn’t have any spare, clean clothes. The rest are all dirty from amassing over weeks of traveling (plus, she generally forgets to do her laundry whenever she makes a trip into civilisation).

She’s only just done gathering the ones she’d left on the floor when the hotel room door clicks open. Her two digistruct modules are left by the sink to dry. “I’ll just leave these here on the bed!” Nilesy calls out, smartly concluding that she’s already in the bathroom. 

“Wait, don’t go yet!” She shouts, keeping the note of panic out of her voice, diving behind the bathroom door to avoid him walking on her if he decides to come in.

“How can I help?” Nilesy’s voice floats closer, stopping just in front of the bathroom door. If he’s guessing that she’s naked, he’s a hundred percent correct.

“Do you have a washing machine or a dryer?” Well, she’s already embarrassed by herself by dripping water everywhere, she might as well go the full way.

“That I do,” Nilesy pleasantly confirms. “If you needed your clothes to be cleaned and dried, I can do that too.”

“Please,” Lomadia mumbles.

“I take it you’ll want these as well.” She can hear Nilesy marching across the room and back. Lomadia squeezes herself further behind the door as it opens just a crack. She takes the bathrobe and towel from him, fumbling, her wet clothes dropping into his waiting hands.

“Anything else?” She can make out that he sounds genuine about wanting her to be comfortable (which makes sense, considering he’s the owner but she’s stayed in places where the lodgings seemed to belong to a wild animal, not a human; and in some cases, had actually belonged to wild animals).

“No,” She concludes after taking a brief moment to actually think about it.

“You can always call me using your ECHO device if you need anything else,” Nilesy informs her. “If you get hungry, I can whip something up. That’s also free.” He pauses. ”Also, we have more rainwater than we know what to do with, so take as long as you like in the bath!” 

Well, at least he’s not shy about letting her know she can relax all she wants and not feel guilty about it.

She nods before realising that he can’t see it through the door. “Thank you.” She hangs the incredibly soft bathrobe and towel up on the racks. 

Only when Nilesy’s left does she dare turning one of the chrome taps (the one with a red dot painted on it for hot water) on. Where’s the plug to stop all the water draining? There, on the soap dish. That goes into the drain.

Steaming water gushes out of it, beginning to fill the tub. Lomadia takes the opportunity to climb in, sitting down and letting the water climb until it’s level with her shoulders. 

Not wanting to let it flood the bathroom if she lets it hit the tub’s rounded edge, she reaches behind her to turn off the tap. Her hair floats on the surface, blond coloured kelp that stains the water a muddy-brown.

It’s the kindest thing she’s ever done for herself on Pandora so far.

A metal dispenser by her left hand spits out a plastic packet. Opening it reveals a tiny pink bar of soap no bigger than the palm of her hand, a foil packet of shampoo and a disposable sponge that sprang back to its former shape when she tries her best to squish it between her rough palms.

Fearing that the soap and shampoo have a noticeable smell to them, Lomadia raises them to her nose. A cautious sniff reveals that the soap and torn pack of shampoo don’t smell like anything in particular. It’s Tediore made and likely costs next to nothing but will get the job done. It suits her need to get clean just fine.

She doesn’t need to go running around smelling of wildflowers to tip off every single animal in the entire area that she’s here to hunt them down.

The door to her hotel room opens while she’s undoing the hair ties (beginning to lose their elasticity, the white band coming apart at the seams) holding her braids together. She can hear Nilesy bustling around the room. The slap of a mop hitting the floor follows every footstep.

“Food and coffee!” He calls out, a grin in his voice. “I've left them on the table for you and I’ve mopped up all the water.”

“Thank you!” She calls back (feeling a little guilty for having left said mess). The tiniest pleased pause answers her. The muffled sound of the door clicking shut lets her know that Nilesy has gone back downstairs. 

Left alone once more, Lomadia drags her fingers through her knotted hair. Soap or shampoo? Soap first, maybe. It’s been literal years since she last had the luxury of a hot bath. The rain is still pelting Oasis with determination, aiming to flood the beach and the alleys. 

Now that she’s no longer standing in it, she finds the sound relaxing rather than an annoyance. She fully intends to enjoy herself.

She starts to scrub her arms down with the soap, working it into a pale pink lather that bubbles between her fingers, mixing with the water. The brown and pink don’t quite go together in the water, forming a thin sludge-like substance that looks like it might congeal any second. Yuck. 

Wrinkling her nose at the idea that that much dirt’s been sitting in her hair for that long (could be weeks, could be months), Lomadia picks up the sponge. Starting with her arms, she starts to scrub herself down. She’ll save the shampoo for next. Her hearing strains, if only to make sure that Nilesy isn’t returning before she dares to hum.

Downstairs, Nilesy puts away the bucket and mop in the cleaning cupboard. There’s a bundle of wet clothes sitting on top of the washing machine. He separates his guest’s clothes into individual pieces. 

He starts with the blue shirt, peeling it away from the pants with a cringe-worthy squelch that only wet clothes could make. A black item flops out, landing wetly on the floor. Leaning down to pick it up before he’s registered what it is, he hefts it up between his forefinger and thumb.

It’s a sports bra, a well worn one at that, from how loose the elastic is. Shrugging, Nilesy tosses it into the washing machine along with the rest of the outfit (underwear, socks, pants and shirt) and sets the machine to its usual wash cycle. 

He’ll check up on it in a bit after he’s made sure his guest is helping themselves to the plentiful tray of food and drink he left upstairs.

Much to his own surprise, he’s coping rather well with another having emerged without a scratch from a near-death experience. Well, he doesn’t want to pass out. That’s always a positive sign, nor does he want to go and crawl under the bed and rethink about moving to somewhere else that isn’t infested with murderous wildlife.

The Vault Hunters that’d passed through town a while back had thinned out the numbers but had clearly missed a few pockets of the beasts.

Stalkers could be tricky beasts; the one in the dumpster has probably made a mess of his garbage. Tomorrow (or whenever it stops raining, really), he’ll have to go and make sure it hasn’t trailed trash everywhere by his back door. Why couldn’t it pick up after itself? What an inconsiderate pleb.

His hand still faintly stinks of fish when he lifts it to adjusts his glasses, even after he’s washed his hand with water and soap twice now. Nilesy walks past the letter he’s drafting to Ravs behind the front counter, heading back up to the occupied room.

There’s no particular reason why he’s bothering his guest so much except to make it clear that he’s exceptionally grateful in that they intervened before he became stalker chow.

While he’s certain that his demise at the hands of other people is ridiculously high, death by the jaws (since Pandoran wildlife don’t have hands, as far as he can tell) of creatures comes a close second. Unfortunately, since he can’t die due to not owning a cat or else he’d have passed on long ago, those other two causes of death are most likely.

Under his feet, the stairs creak as he ascends. He should fix that soon- is that humming but faint? Nilesy pauses on the stairs, blinking. 

He doesn't own a radio. None of his neighbors do and if they did, they kept the volume rather low. Suspecting that his guest is humming, Nilesy shifts his position on the stairs so that his feet are now firmly planted on the wooden portions that don’t creak.

Nobody can outstealth the Nilesinator in his own home. Nilesy resumes climbing the stairs, albeit quietly. That is definitely humming, soft and musical drifting out from under the crack in the green door. Does he really want to disturb his guest again? He’s already standing in front of the door, hand poised to knock; he’d hate to interrupt the humming. 

With a jolt, he realises that he’s humming along in time. It hasn’t stopped on the other side of the door. Jolting from the realisation causes his hand to accidentally knock against the wood. 

Abruptly, the humming stops, much to his disappointment. Footsteps (barely audible) pause behind the door. Nilesy straightens up, pushing a smile onto his face as to not give the wrong impression.

“Yes?” Content yellow eyes peer out at him, blinking slowly. Seeing the half-empty mug of coffee being held in their hand fills him with satisfaction. His guest is clothed in the white bathrobe, their wet hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.

“I came to let you know that your clothes will be dry in the morning and that I’ll deliver them to you as part of the complimentary breakfast,” Nilesy breathlessly explains, adopting a smile after. Inwardly, he’s patting himself on the back for coming up with the most convincing lie he’s ever told in three seconds flat. “What would you like for breakfast and what time should I arrive with it?”

His guest regards him with a flicker of surprise. They take a thoughtful sip from the mug of coffee. “What would be the easiest for you?”

“The easiest for me?” The question is unexpected, catching him by surprise. Someone is actually considering how much effort must go into running his hotel- no, this isn’t a dream or anything, he’s sure. They nod. He takes a moment to think before casually answering, “I suppose pancakes. I can make those in no time flat, if that’s what you’d be happy with?”

“Then pancakes it is,” They firmly say, adding, “Deliver it at dawn, if you please.”

Dawn? He can do that. Before he forgets (admiring their decisiveness), Nilesy brightly inquires, “How is the coffee, by the way?”

He’d made it based on how most people like to take it: a dash of powdered milk supplemented by two fingernail-sized packets of sugar, not too bitter but not too sweet.

That causes them to glance down at the mug in their hand as though they’d only just realised they’ve been holding it the whole time. Something about the sight makes Nilesy want to chuckle. “It’s very good. Thank you again,” They sincerely inform him.

“Excellent. Well, I won’t keep you from enjoying your stay. Have a good evening.” Nilesy move to leave, only to stop at the sound of their low voice.

“Wait.” They duck back into the room to return with an empty tray with the fork and knife neatly piled on top of the plate. Nilesy hefts it into his hands. “It was good food,” They compliment. 

Nilesy can’t help but grin (completely missing out awkward it might have sounded if he’d been more attentive). They nod before gently closing the door.

Lomadia waits until she’s heard Nilesy retreating with the tray; the look on his face had been pure joy. What sort of answers were _those_? Obviously, living rough and avoiding people as much as possible were bound to have an effect on her social skills but she hadn’t thought that they’d be that _rusty_.

She flops onto the bed, burying her face in one of the pillows, hoping to smother her growing embarrassment as she does so. 

The pillow is soft beyond belief, possessing the right sort of springiness and yet, not lumpy or hard. She lets go to marvel at it, forgetting about her social blunders. No other place she’s stayed in provides such soft pillows.

All her wet hair is leaving an imprint on it and the sheets. Lomadia gets up to steal the extra towel from the bathroom to lay it on top of the pillow. There, now she can rest her head without worrying her hair dirtying it. Her head practically sinks into the pillow, cushioning it. It’s amazing how she hadn’t thought her exhaustion is that much of a pressing issue, not until she’s in a bed.

Rain traces idle patterns against the glass of the window above her head. She hugs the pillow her hair hadn’t wet, tucking herself under the sheets.

If somebody had told her that she’d be spending the night for free in a hotel to enjoy a hot meal, coffee, and a bath ninety hours ago, she would have called them a liar. Her last thoughts before passing out are of retrieving her clothes first thing in the morning, but the sheets are just as lovely as the pillows and sleep is already caressing her eyes shut.

\--

Nilesy wakes in his room, the sleepiness taking longer to subside than usual. He yawns the kind of yawn where every single tooth is on display.

If he’d been a cat, he’d stretched out his front paws as far as they could go, back legs solidly braced against the bed, both spine and tail arched in pleasure. Since he’s not a cat, he just opts to let the yawn carry on until it’s fully out of his system. 

Out of five, that yawn would have scored a four and a half. He takes half a point off for having gone on for precisely three seconds too long. A perfect yawn is neither too short nor too long.

His alarm is silent, still ticking away the minutes until it blares. Nilesy turns it off. It’s rare he wakes before his alarm, being the kind of person to hit the snooze button and have a lie-in. The second time his alarm calls is when he knows he really has to get up.

Oh right, his guest wanted breakfast at dawn. It’s also a good time to go and pick up their clothes (which should have dried out by now) from the laundry room. Expecting nothing out of the ordinary, Nilesy drifts into the kitchen and spies a great big rakk outside the kitchen window by the sink.

Now, ordinary people would have screamed and immediately shot the creature. Now, Nilesy is not ordinary (living on Pandora definitely doesn’t fit into the layman’s definition of ‘ordinary’). He also does not own a gun (also not as rare as one would think on Pandora).

Perhaps the rakk is just a hallucination, or whatever those wavy mirage-like images out in the desert are called. Nilesy tries his best to imagine that there is nothing outside his window when he squeezes his eyes shut. He dares to open them five seconds later.

That did not work. There is still a rakk outside his kitchen window, now peering at him with interest. It has a flat, fleshy disc on top of its head which is now raised. Based on his limited experience with animals, Nilesy knows that said body language falls into one of the two camps, good or bad, mostly in the latter.

Nilesy crabwalks over to the cupboards. The rakk never takes its eyes off him the entire time, its head swivelling on its thin neck. Keep calm, Nilesy, it can probably smell your fear. Fear makes one tastier.

The creature could definitely smash through the window and rip a giant chunk out of him if it wanted to. He doesn’t know when but he doesn’t plan on letting it be that simple. 

He might not have a gun but he has secret weapons hidden all over the place, if he can just find one of the blasted things- his hand feels along the counter, thrusting into one of the drawers to extract something just as deadly as a gun: a wooden rolling pin.

Nilesy hefts it into his hands, the smooth surface an immediate comfort. It weighs as much as a shotgun, with the added benefit of not shooting himself in the foot if he fumbles.

He’s spent many an afternoon rolling said pin over sheets of cookie dough and one time, he used it to threaten some regulars into behaving when they refused to line up with everybody else for the usual water refills.

Wait. What if somebody walks by and sees the rakk? Nilesy’s mind starts to go haywire imagining the consequences. 

People will panic, screaming for help. Some of those people have guns and will not hesitate to shoot at the rakk. If they miss, it could possibly result in draining his savings to fix all the bullet holes left in the side of his hotel. If they hit the rakk, well, that’s one less problem to worry about in his world.

He has to get rid of the rakk, _now_.

Nobody else is up at dawn so he has a while to do so. The problem is that Nilesy knows nothing about how to deal with a troublesome rakk. 

A downwards glance at his faithful rolling pin yields no clues. Spinning it in his hands, he returns to staring out the window at the creature now grooming one of its leathery wings (the wingspan twice his height). He could always call for help instead- no, it’s silly to be troubling Ravs with this.

“Hey Ravs, sorry to bother you, but there’s an unnaturally large rakk looming outside my kitchen window, can you get rid of it for me?” Be casual about it, that might help.

While Ravs had explicitly impressed the importance of running to him for help in regards to anything, this seems too much of a trivial request.

He’s on his own. The thought of that is not inspiring any great ideas. Any moment now, he’ll have an ‘eureka’ moment. Wait for it.

Nilesy curses, hit by the wrong kind of ‘eureka’, a sudden bolt out of the blue that makes the fear already in him practically reach sub zero degrees (setting a new record). 

His guest can’t be seen getting attacked by the rakk when they leave. That’d spell disaster, his imagination painting business crawling (if it hasn’t already) for the next few months. The town will also never let him forget it. Why did this have to _happen_ to him?

Nilesy resumes his crabwalk in the direction of the hallway. Once he’s clear of the kitchen, he sticks the rolling pin into his inventory. Abandoning the crabwalk to run normally, he dashes into the laundry room to snatch up his guest’s clothes from the dryer. He almost knocks the detergent off the washing machine. It rocks dangerously before staying put.

Because of all that ridiculous dallying, it’s ten minutes until dawn. Minus the time handing over the clothes, that’s five minutes to figure out how to get rid of the rakk, make his guest pancakes and- well, that’s as far as he’s planned. It’s a start, though.

He knocks on the door, expecting them to still be asleep. Much to his surprise, his guest answers the door, looking wide-awake, their hair in two thick braids hanging over both shoulders. They’re still wearing the bathrobe from yesterday.

“Good morning, breakfast will be coming up shortly-” He abruptly stops because just over his guest’s shoulder is the rakk. 

It’s clinging to the only window leading into the hotel room. Is it the same rakk he’d seen downstairs? Check, one raised crest. Check, it’s the exact same shade of purple-brown, speckled in places. Check, giant wingspan. Check, giant maw that’s fogging up the window.

His guest does not seem all that perturbed about a rakk hanging out in plain sight behind them. Noticing the pause, his guest frowns. 

Quick as a flash, Nilesy’s slid his customer service smile in place and is beaming (when all he really wants to do is lob the rolling pin straight at the rakk because the thing has no right to disturb his hotel customers).

“Is everything okay?” His guest inquires, their brow furrowing. Those yellow eyes regard him with mild worry.

“No, not at all! Here are your clothes,” Nilesy hastily lies.

He makes a show of handing over their clothes (neatly strung on a wooden hanger), keeping an eye on the rakk the whole time. It’s just sitting on the windowsill, doing nothing but peer into the room. It occasionally tosses its great head, shifting restlessly.

His guest moves to turn around once they’ve got their clothes back- Nilesy’s already blurting out, “What sort of toppings would you like on your pancakes?” Their eyes drift to him once more.

They ponder the question with quiet intensity. “I’d like drakefruit, if you have any.”

“I definitely do have drakefruit!” Nilesy cheerfully says, willing the rakk to please move. The rakk shifts, moving to take off. With clumsy beats of both wings, it flaps off to the side, long snake-like tail whipping out of sight. It reminds Nilesy of a brown bedsheet escaping into the wind.

His guest turns around to face the window, frowning. Nilesy decides that now is as good as a time as any to extract himself from the situation and see where the rakk’s flown off to. He excuses himself with less finesse than usual, dashing all the way down to fling himself into the kitchen.

Panting, he tiptoes over to the kitchen window. There’s nothing there save for glass bearing a five centimetre thick layer of months of dust and a lopsided smiley face he once drew on it for fun. Nilesy lets himself breathe. 

A crested head thrusts into his face, only separated by said glass pane. He lets out the most undignified shriek in his entire life, scrambling back away from the window pane, rolling pin already in his hand. 

He’s raised it above his head, poised to clock it right on the kisser (yes, right through the glass) when his guest stumbles into the kitchen in search of the scream’s source.

Both wide-eyed, they stare at one another. His guest takes in the batting pose, the rolling pin he’s gripping in both hands, his red cheeks and fear-filled gaze.

He takes in her braids that are coming apart, the blue shirt that’s on back to front with one sleeve not rolled up completely, the boots with laces undone and the look on their face that’s split between incredulity and bemusement.

The tension in the room lasts for a single second, which is all it takes for them to register the situation and explode into laughter.

Nilesy’s laughter is loud and hysterical (aptly reflecting his current emotional state), the rolling pin falling in his hand. He drops it onto the kitchen table with a heavy wooden ‘thunk’, dropping onto one of the chairs or else he’d have collapsed onto the floor.

His guest’s laughter is more restrained, a series of soft, breathy chuckles. One of their hands comes up to hide their smile under their palm, their other hand clutching at their stomach. Judging from how hard they’re trying to restrain their laughter, tears are already leaking out of their slitted, yellow eyes.

“Why do you have a rolling pin?” They manage to gasp.

“And why is there a rakk outside my kitchen window?” Nilesy retorts, his voice rising higher on the word ‘outside’.

“That’s-” They gulp air like he does, straightening up to toss their braids over their shoulder to look incredibly sheepish. “Well.”

“Well?” Nilesy lifts his head, wiping away tears of laughter from his own face to blink at them.

“It’s a long story, but the rakk is ‘mine’.”

“Oh!” He sits up, regarding them with equal sheepishness. “I was planning on smacking it with the rolling pin since I thought it was wild.” Nilesy gives a nervous, awakward laugh. He must look pretty stupid right now. He feels like it.

“It is,” His guest gently corrects, a toothy smile on their lips.

“Then what-” He doesn’t get it, and that’s when both their stomachs proceed to rumble loudly in the kitchen. “I think that’s a sign that I should make pancakes,” Nilesy crisply decides with a meaningful look directed at his own stomach. 

The rakk outside returns to staring intently at them through the window.

\--

Lomadia glances at the crowds hustling into the terminals. Luggage trolleys laden with a plethora of cases bump and creak their way across the smudged linoleum floor. 

A hundred years after its construction, there are things that the best pressure cleaners and robots couldn’t get out of it, like the impression of millions of soles daily tramping across it. Like the slow ticking of a clock, the sounds of a thousand pairs of feet tap across the expanse of the spaceport. 

This is just one area of the spaceport, reserved for flights that are outbound instead of inbound towards the six galaxies. As such, it’s less busier. It’s still obnoxiously crammed full of people, all of them with their minds fixed on their destination.

She has been on two consecutive flights, the travel leaving her running on two hours of sleep and cranky to the point of almost snapping at people who bumped her elbows in their rush to leave the docked spaceship.

When she glances at all the overhead holographic screens listing all the outbound flights, she finds hers right at the very bottom, ‘PANDORA’ shoved underneath ‘EROS-6’. Her heart leaps, doing a sort of swan dive back down after spotting it. It’s due to depart in forty-five minutes and it’ll take her fifteen minutes to get across the floor.

Wildly, she casts her gaze back to the crowd ahead of her. On her luggage trolley, the cloth-covered cage is holding the rakk. Everything else is in her inventory. She dares to risk lifting a dark corner to check how it’s holding up. It’s squashed into one corner in a rather undignified position, appearing to have dozed off at some point. Both wings are probably cramped and sore by now. She replaces the corner of the cloth.

It’s the only way she can transport it without attracting unwanted attention. The bright red and yellow stamp slapped across the cloth ‘BIOLOGICAL CARGO’ excuses any sounds the the rakk might make when it’s awake. 

The upcoming flight is the last she has to take. It’ll drop here off on the surface of Pandora.

Back to the crowd. There’s almost no way to safely navigate it without getting herself knocked aside or dislodging her sleeping rakk from the trolley. Annoyed that it’s not helping much, Lomadia wishes she was taller but unfortunately, the opportunity for growing taller has long since slipped past her, like the chance to turn back and go home.

Fuck this, the time for niceties is long past, like her former, hellish job. Lomadia aims her trolley at a bunch of businessmen (all of them carrying leather suitcases and half-empty cups of coffee, polished loafers gliding soundlessly on the floor) and barrels towards them.

They leap out of her way, of course, or risk being run over; two of them shout at her but Lomadia simply sweeps past without an apology and proceeds to shove onwards. People step back, jump, roll and duck out of her way. The look on her face is murderous, her back hunched with the effort of steering her trolley. Her gaze is set on the number of the terminal far ahead of her.

She might have ran over a foot (eliciting a shriek of pain) but she doesn’t care, muttering a half-assed apology out of the corner of her mouth for their trouble.

Before she knows it, she’s reached the terminal. The attendant there is scanning tickets, welcoming people aboard in a bored tone; there’s only two other people heading to Pandora and they’re only just checking in their luggage. She joins the line.

Lomadia presents her ticket, dropping her murderous gaze to look content; she’d made it through without much of a hitch. The attendant waves her onboard without looking twice at her cloth covered trolley. 

The other two people let her pass without sparing second glances. By the looks of them, they’re either mercenary types or freelancers. That’s not surprising, considering what sort of place they’re all headed for, her and the rakk included.

That raises an excellent question: why is she headed to Pandora? Aside from finally releasing the rakk into its native habitat, there’s almost no reason for why she stay on such a backwater planet located on the very edge of the system, almost far beyond the reach of civilised space.

She’s not in it for the thrills. For now, she's dressed like she’s going for a hike (her ‘new’ boots worn only twice in her life until now).

The ship she boards is tiny and dingy, smelling of stale air likely cycled through the same, unwashed filters hundreds of times by now. The two passengers take care to sit at opposite ends, not paying any attention to each other or her. Her trolley clutters down the aisle, bouncing over the bits of metal on the floor. 

She keeps a firm hand on it, trying not to let it run into any of the chairs. Another attendant helps her to store the rakk (thankfully, without dislodging the cloth covering over the cage) at the very back in the darkened cargo hold that smelled of dank carpets that haven’t been cleaned in decades.

Lomadia takes her seat at the very back as well, right by it. She could pick a better seat but here, she’s close by the rakk to reassure it if it decides to find issue with waking up to still being in its cage during the tedious flight.

At least she has a book on her (make that several choice books; the rest can be recycled). Lomadia extracts the palm sized, dog-eared volume of ‘Tourist’s Guide to Pandora’ she’d bought from a reader’s vending machine. One corner is chewed up from the rakk wanting to see what a book tasted like; she’d barely managed to wrestle said book away from its curious jaws.

A quick flick brings her back to the page she’d been on, something about visiting the famous polar ice caps located to the far north at the poles of the planet, how not to die of dehydration and assorted bits and pieces of the planet’s history.

Settling down, Lomadia begins to read, ignoring how the ship takes off with a shudder to make anyone with weaker stomachs spacesick. The pilot announces that they’ve set a course to the planet and that refreshments will be doled out in exactly three hours for the price of five dollars.

Hours later, an attendant nudges her elbow; Lomadia has to stop herself from glaring. She’d only just happened upon the section about the wildlife, a bare bones guide that seemed to be highly exaggerated with blurry pictures of brownish lumps called ‘skags’. 

The attendant wordlessly holds up a scuffed plastic tray of rations. Lomadia reluctantly puts the book down and takes the tray, eating most of it and stashing the rest in her inventory. After a moment, she gets up to stretch her legs, moving into the cargo hold. 

The rakk is scuffling around its cage, making pitiful, distressed noises that makes her heart pang.

It reminds her of all the times she'd stayed at the clinic at closing time to comfort all the animals starving for a bit of human affection. She’d given as much as she could before she had to go home. There’s no point in exhausting herself (oh fine, just five more minutes of head scratches, she’ll be back tomorrow, you greedy things).

Lomadia leans down, gently tugging the dark cloth aside. The rakk perks up upon seeing her, crest rising as the noises grow more high-pitched. It’s probably glad to see her after having nothing but a curtain to stare at the whole time.

She pushes a bit of dried jerky through the bars. It’s immediately snatched out of her hand. The rakk lifts its head and swallows it in one gulp, eagerly bobbing its head for more.

Sighing at how hungry it is (there goes her snack), she feeds it several more until the noises stop, the rakk giving her a mournful look when there’s none left. Said noises sounded as if they came from a much smaller, feathered creature that’s not equipped with a set of jaws that could tear her fingers off with one snap.

“You’ll get fat before we land,” She chastises it. Its head droops. Now satisfied, it turns its back on her to go back to sleep, seeing little to occupy its attention.

Lomadia returns to her seat to read; she nods off at some point, only to awaken the moment the pilot announces their arrival.

The moment the ship’s docked, Lomadia whisks the trolley bearing the rakk outside. She is not prepared for the hot blast of air that hits her in the face the second she leaves the spaceport. The trolley is dumped by the entrance for some lucky worker to collect; she can take the rest from here.

Dragging the cage on its rickety four wheels, Lomadia takes it all the way out to the edge of town where it’s empty. The two people she’d been traveling with are nowhere to be seen.

Ten minutes are wasted on trying to find the lock to said cage. By the time she’s found it, the rakk is throwing itself against the bars, causing the cage to shake as it emits shrieks at being so close to freedom and yet, so far.

“Shut up!” She snaps at it. It falls silent, glaring resentfully at her. 

Ultimately, it stays silent. Her fingers find the blasted catch and flip it open. The bars fall down; the rakk stretches it lumpy head out, crest rising and falling as it appears to scent the air, head curiously turning this way and that.

It emerges from the cage on both wings, long tail unfolding from the interior of the cage; one sweep almost knocks the cage on its side. The rakk stretches out one wing, then the other before with one giant flap that causes dust to fly into her eyes and leave her coughing, it takes off into the sky, wheeling higher and higher.

Lomadia vanishes the cage into her inventory. That’s just a waste of five slots but she doesn’t care.

She’s done it. The stupid rakk is now home and now she’s- well, what does she do, now that she’s free? She has nothing to stop her from wandering off in a random direction. If she’s planning on that, then preparing would be a wise choice. 

With that, Lomadia wanders back into town to check out the general store, having more than enough time on her hands to kill.

If there’s a few things that the guide stressed that are must buys, it’s that one, she should get a ration subscription set up to avoid a classic tourist death from lack of food or water (people apparently underestimated how much food and water they’d need out here). Two, buy some better clothing, and three, get some guns and a shield.

A glance at the window informs her that the guns aren’t stocked in the store. She buys them from a vending machine outside. Ads, singing the praises of one manufacturer over another, softly blare out at her from the dust caked speaker on the front of it.

White quality doesn’t mean much to her. So long as it works, she can make do. After a few minutes of scanning the menu, she buys herself some matching ammo. She skips looking at the higher tiered weapons altogether, the sniper rifles and rocket launchers.

The guns she now owns consist of one shotgun and an assault rifle. There’s a free shield thrown in, seeing as they’d been on special. 

There’s no reason to turn down the freebie. Lomadia dons it straightaway. It hums, powering on for the first time. Her skin tingles as the blue protective layer settles over her for the first time. Her HUD refreshes to reflect the addition, a tiny number and bar popping up in one corner.

She really hopes she never has to shoot but that seems incredibly optimistic to the point of naive foolishness. 

The other two travelers seemed to know their stuff; both had a number of holsters and bandoliers hanging off their persons. They’d been empty at the spaceport to avoid being caught out by the alarms. Just before they’d landed, she’d seen them being filled with guns and ammo. 

The general store did sell clothes, a bunch of them hanging off beaten racks leaning drunkenly against the wall. She has to go to the very back of the store before she finds it. It’s between the fridge containing slabs of purpling raw meat and the shelf overflowing with boxes of rations.

That said, the selection is rather paltry to begin with. It’s offering unisex shirts, pants, socks, sealed plastic packs of underwear, bras, binders and undershirts. It takes her only twenty minutes to pick through the lot on display and make up her mind. 

The storekeeper keeps their eyes glued to the flickering ECHOnet set on the counter, their pinky finger excavating one of their ears as flies buzzed around the ceiling.

She’s sensibly decided on several long-sleeved shirts (of Dahl make, none of which sport camouflage print), a hooded jacket lined with fur that’s one size too large made out of shiny material boasting adventuring proof properties (from wind to water to sun), trousers and a second pair of brand new hiking boots. 

It’s when she spots the bandolier almost stuffed out of sight behind a crumpled shirt. It’s pulled out.

Upon closer examination, the bandolier is crafted out of some sort of brown leather with irregular patches of pink here and there. The pink resembles flesh expertly stripped and crafted from the underside of an animal.

When she runs her finger over the aged surface, the indents and the almost invisible bristles aren’t anything she’s ever encountered before. The leather smells musty like it’s been sitting in the store for months.

A torn cardboard box (the writing on the side proclaiming ‘BANDANNAS’) holds patterned cloth. She’s delighted to find one with owls stamped all over it. Ten minutes are spent picking out several more, including one featuring cats, another with feathers and one more with a dog-like beast she’s never see before chasing after its own tail (if it had one to begin with, only a stumpy thing in place).

Overall, it costs her a little under hundred dollars, including getting her ration subscription set up and buying some extra rations for the road. The storekeeper flashes her a gap-toothed smile and thanks her too many times for her purchase. Lomadia’s probably their first customer in a while who’s paid more than fifty dollars.

“You’ll want to watch out if you’re headed in that direction, lots of bandits are out and about these days,” They grunt in the way of a warning. She nods as she takes her change. Heading into bandit territory is assuredly not part of the plan.

Outside, Lomadia piles everything but the bandolier into her inventory. That goes on over one of her shoulders. It hangs far too loosely off her so she busies with adjusting the straps until it’s snug against her body. 

Other than that, it’s so unobtrusive that she barely notices it’s there, not until her fingers accidentally brush against it. It’ll take some getting used to, plus learning where all her gear is stored in the pouches.

The bandanna printed with owls is tied around her head. It’ll help to protect her head from the sun until she gets hold of a decent hat (which the general store lacked).

As she fills each pouch with ammo and rations, she lets her gaze explore the town. The breeze spins up columns of dust that barely reach her knees. There’s a pothole ridden road running through the middle of the town. 

A few people converse in low, guttural voices. They’re using a language she doesn’t recognise, sticking to what little shade exists to avoid being sunburned. The town’s primary color is an orange-brown that seems to have saturated everything over time.

Considering how quiet the town is, not many people appeared to stop in it for long. Still, if the spaceport is still open, the place must get business or else it’d have become a ghost town (another attraction that her guidebook spoke of).

A few local businesses have their doors propped wide open with splintering deck chairs to let the heat drain outside and to coax in the rare breeze (or customer).

Feeling that there’s nothing more to the town, Lomadia walks across to the bus station to await hitching a ride. She doesn’t have to wait for long. Twenty minutes later, an armoured thing that can hardly be called a bus rolls up, coughing black fumes as the doors swing wide to admit her. 

After staring at it for a moment, she hops on and buys a ticket to a place called ‘New Haven’ based on the driver’s recommendation.

She misses the shadow tailing the bus, too busy familiarising herself with the rest of Pandora's sights listed in her guidebook. It’s not until she steps off the bus (which trundles off). Stopping dead in her tracks, Lomadia’s eyes follow the shadow as it lands before her.

The rakk alights on a billboard, hunching over to peer at her. How it’s sitting on the board without it collapsing under its weight is baffling. The finger-like protrusions from its wing pinch the metal under it, steadying its form on its chosen perch.

“Shoo,” She automatically hisses at it, raising her hands to gesture just as much to it. The rakk regards her impassively without so much as twitching.

Why did it follow her all the way out here? She doesn't have any food it can possibly eat. The rakk only ever ate meat (even pieces well on their way to rotting), though it’s been known to chomp on the occasional fly or bug that zoomed past its head.

She didn’t raise the blasted thing so it can’t have imprinted on her (which she doubts, given both their misgivings about its former owner). It’d been almost fully grown when it’d arrived on her doorstep miserably stuffed inside an ornamental cage made for a much smaller animal. 

The owner claimed that its stubborn and vicious nature made it hard to tame, even when they’re acquired it as an egg.

Lomadia had to stop herself sarcastically retorting, ‘you’d probably want to bite a chunk out of anybody who tried to put you in a diamond studded collar and wanted you to do humiliating tricks’.

It knows she doesn’t like it. Lomadia closes her eyes, sighing. “Go away,” She grounds out loud. It’s still sitting there, watching her with a baleful tilt of its head. “I don’t have any food for you!”

Deciding that it’s not worth her time, Lomadia marches into the town to go and find a mechanic who’ll set her up with a vehicle. If bus driver was right, then this is the right place. Once she’s emerged from the town, the rakk will have helpfully cleared off.

Two hours later, Lomadia is the proud new owner of a light runner and a technical. The mechanic with an obnoxiously thick, blundering accent had seemed insistent on loudly asking if she’s seeing anyone, dropping obvious hints that they're available, just in case she isn’t, and would she like to perhaps get dinner?

A long, unblinking, cold stare from her had shut down the inappropriate questions unless they're related to her new rides and her ability to obtain them from the Catch-A-Stations.

She picks the technical, seeing as it’s closer to what she’d driven back home. Her technical is a boring shade of dark brown. She’s almost steered it back onto the highway when a shadow crosses the road ahead of her.

Not wanting to stop and let the rakk see her, she speeds off, tearing around the corner and is on the highway in five minutes rather than ten.

There’s no map marker to follow, just the open road and the sun making its long solo journey across the sky. She drives until she stops at a motel for the night, certain that she’s shaken off the creature. When she climbs out and is despawning her ride, the telltale sound of wings flap behind her.

Dreading what she’ll see, she turns around. The rakk is sitting on the roof of the motel, looking incredibly pleased with itself, smugly preening one wing.

She groans. The technical hadn’t obviously outrun it despite pushing it to its very limits. If the technical hadn’t outrun the rakk, it’s doubtful that the light runner can do so. Boosting won’t help, the roads having a treacherous habit of curving when least expected.

“I said I don’t have any food!” She shouts up at the rakk, now just incensed that it won’t leave. The rakk continues preening itself. “I know you can hear me!”

Annoyed, she strides into the motel to book a room for the night, deciding that she couldn’t give a flying fuck. If it wants to follow her, then _fine_. It’ll have to get bored and leave at some point.

Five days later, it’s still tailing her as she drives through the countryside, filling out her map with the help of her informative guidebook.

\--

A skag hunting ground sounds like the perfect place to test her shooting skills. She heads in. At this point, she knows what to spot in terms of the local fauna and flora. So far, nothing poses much danger to her health if she decides to fancy going after wild game and save her rations for another time.

Skags aren’t quite at the top of the food chain but they’re not at the bottom either. They ate but could be eaten, in a sense.

Most people’s diets included skag meat, based off on what she’s seen. She has nothing against hunting them. It’s not like they’re a protected species (unlike a certain rakk following her around).

The skag hunting grounds don’t appear to be that popular. As the technical rolls up to the area, her eyes are dragged to the ground. Only one trail catches her attention: the fresh tracks of a technical. She adds her own, taking the technical in and keeping an eye out for anybody else who might be sharing the grounds with her. 

A low, barren plain dipping and rising in places with hills appears before her. Canyons rise in the background with steeper hills to the left and right. 

What vegetation can thrive consists of tacky scrub, scraggly bushes and dead trees whose thin, bare branches barely stretched up in a half-hearted attempt to reach the sun.

The only foreign object in sight is the lone dark blue technical. A bit of blue tarp riddled with holes is crudely thrown over the driver’s seat. A padlocked storage unit is tied down in the back with rope and buckles. Whoever it is, they’re certainly well prepared.

Well, it looks like she's not the only person here, dashing the hope that she has the place to herself. 

Still, from a glance, the hunting grounds are as vast as the open space ahead of her. It’s such a minor possibility and yet, plausible. There’s only one way to test that without turning back and calling it quits before she’s begun.

Her technical’s left parked behind a bunch of rocks crowded together, well out of the way. The turret sticks out with the back wheels but that’s the least of her concerns. It’s in the shade, so there’s no need to worry about the technical overheating.

Her main concern is running into another human being in the area; she doesn’t quite look forward to any sort of interaction that might spring up from any random encounters. The second concern is that she might emerge from her hunt empty-handed.

A minute of plodding through the plains proves the second concern wrong. 

One lone skag is excavating a burrow, dirt being thrown out behind it as its front limbs paw at the hardened ground. Its two side jaws part as it pants. A hack throws up greenish bile that splashes over the rock it’d failed to dislodge. From the looks of its soft, pale hide, it’s a young one, likely having left its group to strike out on its own.

Lomadia draws an assault rifle, slowly, careful not to make any sound. Four months on Pandora have armed her with the ability to shoot someone if they piss her off and not feel the slightest bit apologetic for it.

Shooting a live target that’s not a human is different to what she’d imagined. The skag poses a sizeable target, young enough to not have any great number of followers yet and not old enough to have grown into a monster capable of ripping her head off in one bite.

It’s not much of a challenge to peer down her sights, align the sights on its head and let the gun do the rest. The kick of her gun barely affects her aim, the first lot of bullets flying right over its head. She adjusts. The second lot slam into its head before it can react, spotting her. Fortunately, the head is not that edible. It crumples onto four legs, blood spurting out.

Despite having shot the skag right in the head, she feels the tiniest bit of remorse; it’ll eventually go away of its own accord. The act of killing grows easier, with every one. There’s the hope that someday, she can do it without thinking twice. At least it’d been a quick and painless death; the skag’s remains will put to good use, no part of it wasted.

Lomadia can also feel eyes on her, a familiar feeling that sends goosebumps creeping all up her arms. 

“Not bad for a first timer,” drawls an impressed voice she’s never heard before. 

Lomadia whips around to spot a bandit lounging on one of the rocks to her right. A Vladof assault rifle is balanced in one hand. The barrel is almost touching the ground, dark grey metal glinting in the sun.

Her gun’s already being pointed at their chest. The bandit puts their free hand up, grinning at her, unusually rather at ease with having a gun pointed at them.

“Who are you?” She demands, raising her voice, defensive and not at all pleased to run into someone so soon. Five long steps would have brought her over to stand in front of them.

The assault rifle in their hand disappears in a flicker of blue, leaving them without a weapon. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed bandit, would you?” The drawl becomes smug rather than impressed. Hesitation flickers over her face before she can prevent it. The gun moves a fraction up to fix on their face. Seeing it, they add as their other hand hand’s raised into the air, “On second thought, maybe I should rephrase that: you wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, would you?”

“Yes, I would,” She bluffs, though without any real conviction. Hearing it out loud still gives her a sliver of confidence. It’s all she needs to keep the gun level in her hands. 

Shooting other people’s done out of self-defense. Shooting someone on purpose (with pure malice backing her action) hasn’t happened. Yet.

“Ah, well.” A click of the tongue fills in the brief pause. “I ain’t stopping you if you want to open fire,” The bandit says with an unconcerned shrug, lowering both hands. They regard her with a trace of arrogance on their features, their eyes possessing an all-too smug glint to it. It irritates her. 

What did they think this is, a game? She is holding a gun. It’s a tool that could very well kill them (or her) in a blink of an eye. The storekeeper’s warning about bandit country flits into her mind. This is the first bandit she’s met up close.

“You’re an idiot to think I’m shooting someone who’s unarmed,” Lomadia scowls, lowering her own gun at last. 

It’s safer to still have it out, just in case they try anything. If it’s one knack she’s proud of cultivating, it’s firing from the hip. It’s rather crude, but effective for emergencies.

“Great!” For some reason she can’t fathom, this makes them grin. 

The itch to pull the trigger grows. Lomadia ignores it, noting the shield dangling off their hip preventing any serious harm to them. It’s pointless. On the other hand, getting hit by bullets even when shielded will still bruise and if not, startle.

“What’s a bandit doing so far away from their gang?” She doesn’t bother to keep the disdain out of her voice, knowing that her wariness makes it seem like she’s far more guarded than she should be. 

Where there’s one bandit, more are likely to be close behind- the technical parked out by the entrance probably belongs to them. They’re arrived to the hunting grounds alone. Just like her. There’d been no other set of footprints.

“Do you want the funny version or the boring version of the story?” The bandit raises an eyebrow at her, appearing to enjoy the way the conversation is proceeding.

She lifts the gun in her hands once more. Their gaze drops to it, catching onto the obvious hint. It doesn’t get rid of their arrogance, however.

“Alright, I’m on hunting duty, and bandits eat a lot,” They lightly say, not taking their eyes off it (or her). “I saw you arrive, got curious and couldn’t help myself.” The grin that’s still on their face silently asks ‘happy now?’.

“How about you stick to your side of the grounds and I’ll stick to mine?” Lomadia proposes, still suspicious of their motives. The way they’d just walked on over to watch her at the risk of being shot is somewhat of an alarming thought.

With surprising grace, the bandit slides off the rock, their shield swinging lightly on their hip. “Sure. See you around!” They swagger off with a friendly wave of their hand, apparently not minding her lack of manners. They disappear into a bunch of bushes (eliciting a noisy rustle) on the side of the trail.

Twenty minutes later, Lomadia hears distant gunfire as she’s busy skinning her two kills.

She doesn’t run into them every single time she visits the hunting grounds. The visits only happen when she’s running low on food and craves something fresh. After she’s run into them for the fifth time in a row, she’s beginning to think that they have a rough idea of what days and times she turns up to hunt. Or is it the other way around?

The idea that this is all just a series of lucky coincidences makes her grumpy. She’s more than perfectly happy to share the place; the fact that it has to be with a bandit just doesn’t sit well with her. It makes her itch, in the way that she’s letting ample opportunity slip by her time and time again to eliminate trouble before it began.

The bandit always greets her fairly amiably. It’s in the form of a lazy wave and a friendly grin before they stride off. They seem to be content in sticking to the agreement of ‘you stick to your side and I’ll stick to mine’. 

She’s learned to spot the navy blue of their Dahl jacket from afar amongst the duller hues of the hunting grounds. In those times, she changes her path to move away from the areas they’re culling of skags.

Does she look forward to running into them? Not really, but in the times that they’re not there, she finds that she’s a little disappointed to miss the chance to scowl at them and ignore their greetings. Lomadia doesn’t care if she’s being rude. She’s here to hunt, not be social.

As the bandit had said, nobody else knows these hunting grounds existed. It might as well be their shared, little secret. That’s not exactly a revelation, seeing as the place is reachable only by a certain hilly trail known only by word of mouth. 

She’d known about the place from an old man who ran an optometrist place in the middle of a desert. He’d had doubts it still existed since he hasn’t visited it since his youth but she’d been more than happy to go chasing after that rumour (what with having little else to do).

How did the bandit know about it? They could have stumbled across it by chance but the thought of having to share the grounds still irritates her to no end.

Once, she’d been observing three skags from atop a hill. Three is too many skags for her to handle on her own. Eventually, she spots the bandit emerging downwind of them from around a bend in the path. 

Frowning, their head lowers to the sights of their rifle. The look on their face becomes calculating, their eyes taking note of where they should charge in from, the terrain and whatever else a bandit needs to keep in mind in order to kill.

She crouches down, pressing herself as flat to the ground as possible so they don’t think she’s spying on them. The hill just presents a suitable vantage point for her to keep an eye on the skag populations for the ones needing thinning out for next time.

The bandit’s taller than her, actually. Sitting down on a rock had roughly brought them to eye level (helped along by their slouch). It’s clear that they were military, not just by their jacket or scuffed boots. The healing scars above their left eyebrow once denoted some sort of rank. 

She’s not military so she has no clue as to the specifics but even she knows that only Dahl branded their soldiers in that particular manner.

The way they also handle guns is also an obvious sign, wielding them with a familiarity born of long time use. It wouldn’t surprise her if they knew how to take apart and put a gun together in their sleep.

That said, there’s a pistol holstered on their hip right below their digistruct modules. She’s never seen them use it. They preferred rifles with the occasional shotgun being drawn if the skags got too close for comfort.

Yes, she watches them sometimes, if only because it’s unavoidable from where she’s sitting. Plus, she observes and mimics their tactics, plus techniques. She might not like watching them but if anything, it provides valuable observation (on top of killing time).

Every shot is calculated, hitting a skag’s head with a ruthless precision she admires; her own shots tend to miss half the time. She’s improving but not as much as she’d like. At least she can hit something if she concentrates.

They eliminate the skags according to size. The largest one dies first, followed by the second smallest until the smallest one is left. The smallest one doesn’t appear to have realised the other two skags are dead, moving to stealthily attack the bandit from their blind spot- Lomadia shouts a warning from the top of the hill.

They whip around and unload a hail of bullets that catches the skag right in the mouth, shredding it's head all the way through. Bits of brain, skull and flesh cascade onto the ground. The body is left in the dirt at the bandit’s side. Surprised, the bandit looks up in her direction, lowering their gun. 

She flushes and slides back down the hill; right, that’s enough time spent hunting today. All those kills aren’t going to skin themselves.

Just as she’s climbing into her technical to make a break for it, the bandit catches up. They jog over to her. It’s so tempting to leave and pretend she hasn't seen them approaching but too late, they’re standing by her side of the technical.

The bandit is out of breath, one hand clutching at the growing stitch in their side. “Hold up,” They pant, leaning on her side of the technical. 

When they’re this close she can make out every single freckle. Bright green eyes appraise her, accompanied by a thoughtful tilt of the bandit’s head. A couple of old scars mar what would have otherwise been a pleasant face to look at.

“What do you want?” Lomadia loftily glares at them. She hasn’t yet started the technical, curiosity piqued. It’s not like them to approach her out of the blue. They preferred to stay out of her way after she’d made it perfectly clear she hunts alone.

“Let me catch my breath first.” They hold up a single finger, slumping over until they can straighten up. “You did me a favor back there, so I'm repaying you,” They eventually pant. 

Those green eyes look right into her own yellow ones. Without the constant smug smirk, Lomadia has to admit (with great reluctance) that they aren’t half bad to look at.

“I didn’t do anything,” She firmly denies, still cringing from how she’d shouted. She’s not worried about them at all. For all she cares, the bandit can go and get mauled to death in front of her and not a single tear would be she'd.

“I’m pretty sure I heard you shouting,” They point out, their voice growing terribly sure- Lomadia concentrates on curling her hand around the steering wheel to avoid punching them and taking off. 

She says nothing to neither confirm nor deny their observation, simply glancing at their gloved hand (clean, despite her expectations) on the frame of the driver’s seat. 

“Here, take this!” They extract out a grenade mod from their digistruct module. The grey cylinder is pushed it into her hand with an insistence that instantly earns an annoyed glare. “That should keep some skags busy while you take down the rest.”

“A tesla grenade,” She flatly notes, staring at the grenade mod sitting in her hand. It’s a bundle of wires, random bits and bobs wrapped around a cylinder dented in places. A blue light spills out from the lights on the sides. It barely weighs anything.

It’s definitely of bandit make. Only bandits could put together something that looked straight out of a junkyard and yet, still be functional. Lomadia wouldn’t put it past the bandit to have built the grenade mod themself. 

They seemed to know their stuff, even if that stuff is jury-rigging explosives out of discarded scrap, defunct electronics, spare parts and what regular people deemed as ‘rubbish’. Well, one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

For the record, she doesn’t regularly use explosives. They’re far too loud, attracted the wrong sort of attention and too risky. The one she carries around are there by default. They’re there for emergencies.

“You seem to have trouble taking on more than two skags.” They regard her with a serious look. The fact that they’d seen her hunt (several times, is what they’re implying to know that she never takes on more than two at a time) does not please her.

“I can’t take this-” Lomadia moves to hand the gift back. If they’re giving it to her under the impression of charity, they can take it back and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.

The bandit smoothly steps back, taking their hand away, smiling. “I got spares. Keep it. You can sell it if you don’t want it, and vending machines will give you a good price for that,” They firmly say, easily deflecting her refusal.

In spite of wanting to throw away the grenade mod the instant the bandit strolls off elsewhere, Lomadia reluctantly pockets it with a care that surprises herself. 

There’s no point to chasing after them to hand it back. Somehow, sneaking the grenade mod into their technical is resorting childishness that she’s steered clear of for years now. Besides, the gift might prove its worth.

She ends up using the grenade several times, just like the bandit predicted. Her irritation with them is now bordering on admiration and exasperation in that they’re right about the grenade.

One day, she follows her usual hunting trail, only to come across the bandit. The sight of them on her trail (they have their own, she knows because they always took the other path) causes annoyance to surge through her. On the other hand, they’re tucked behind a rock. Hunting skags didn’t require stealth.

“Hey, if you have to come over, get behind the rock,” The bandit hisses, their gun drawn up to their chest.

Lomadia says nothing, their tone and her curiosity driving her to crawl behind the rock to join them. It’s the first time in weeks that they've spoken to her aside from waving. They tilt their head in the direction of the clearing behind them.

It’s then that Lomadia lifts her annoyed gaze to see what has them so concerned. She forgets about having words with them about their long standing agreement. 

There is the biggest skag that Lomadia’s ever seen dozing in the clearing, sunning itself. 

The skags they’ve been picking off are half the size of that one. They might as well have been picking off the runts of the litter. It's a beast covered all over in thick, greyish hide broken up in places by darker and lighter brown. Scarred plates gently bulge in and out along its sides as it breathes.

Of course, its appearance is the initial concern before another thought strikes her with a sobering jolt: all that meat would last her for days. Judging by the look on the bandit’s face, they’re thinking the exact same thing.

“We should team up,” The bandit proposes, keeping their voice lowered to a whisper. Even when whispering, there’s the trace of a leisurely, smug drawl, albeit suppressed.

“Team up with you?” Lomadia gives them the tiniest frown, not wanting to take her eyes off the skag. Yeah, right. And the rakk will do magic tricks on command.

“You can’t take that thing on by yourself,” The bandit calmly points out, correctly guessing that she wants to fight it as well.

She despises how they’re right. That skag is enormous, towering over the bandit by at least three heads. “Fine. What do you propose?” Well, they can always run and hope that they can make it to their technicals before the skag kills them.

The bandit grins, their face practically lighting up. Their eyes filled with a maniacal glint that she has learned to associate with the worst troublemakers. Lomadia suppresses the urge to stand up and walk away right that second. 

Only the thought of all that meat, all that food that’ll last her a solid week, stops her. She hunches down lower behind the rock as the bandit leans closer to her.

Dust is the first thing she smells, along with the telltale scent of sweat. Underneath those, there's the tiniest trace of a metallic tang that she's come to associate with either blood or gunpowder. Their gloved fingers curl around the gun they’re holding, hefting it up.

“We flank the skag. I’ll distract it and when the mouth opens up, just open fire.” It sounds as though they know what they’re doing. At the flicker of incredulity she can’t hide on her face, they reach over to pat her on the shoulder with a gloved hand (that she almost bristles at). “It’ll be easy!” They reassure. 

She wants to smack their hand away, snapping back with a witty retort that’d wipe that smirk off their face. Given the circumstances, she holds her tongue.

The rakk following her around has taken to the skies. Learning how to communicate with it reveals a shrewd intelligence lurking behind its deceptively simple looks. 

So far, Lomadia’s taught it a few commands that it’s fine following, provided there’s something sort of reward (preferably food) presented after. 

They’ve been working on ‘attack’. It’s still incomplete; Lomadia can’t quite get the notes down, earning highly entertained head bobs from her rakk for her attempts to replicate it's calls. It’s _laughing_ at her. Well, stuff it. They’re both bound to reach an understanding at some point.

Lomadia drags her attention back to the situation. Admittedly, all the confidence in the bandit’s voice does little to deter the gut feeling that this could all go horribly wrong. The bandit leans out from behind the rock to peer at the skag. The skag is still resting in the clearing, none the wiser.

“You first,” Lomadia says, pulling her own gun out and checking that it’s reloaded. Her HUD says that her shield is charged. The bandit nods at her once, shifting from their crouch.

They dart out from behind the rock, expertly sliding down the hill. A grenade sails over the skag’s head, landing on its other side. The grenade goes off with not one bang, but several. The racket causes the creature to start, leaping onto its feet to snap at the cloud of dust that blows into its face. 

The bandit is already peppering the skag with bullets, luring it away from the rock Lomadia is hiding behind. Well, that’s one way to start an encounter.

Lomadia takes that as her cue to join the fray, shooting at the skag as she sprints out from behind the rock. Some of her bullets embed into the skag’s flesh on its unprotected legs; it roars, swivelling to face her. 

The bandit had chosen well. The skag is old and abandoned by its group, judging from its scarred and flaking plates; no other skags will come to its rescue.

Just as the skag turns to charge at her, the bandit tosses another grenade over, right by the skag. The grenade explodes with a burst of heat that the breeze carries over to her. The daughter explosions send up another cloud of dust and debris that knocks the skag off its four feet, sending it flying to the ground, limbs scrabbling.

It rolls back onto its feet to eye the bandit and promptly charges at them, head held down. The bandit moves back, reloading their rifle, feet kicking up dirt as they dodge its charge and sprint back the other way.

A pink tongue lashes out, snaking around the bandit’s ankle. Lomadia spies surprise on their features, followed by a split second of an ‘oh shit’ expression before the skag yanks its head back. With a yell, the bandit slammed onto their back, wincing. Another toss of the skag’s mighty head causes them to be reeled in across the ground. 

Struggling, the bandit manages to sit up shooting at the tongue in an attempt to free themself. Every bullet whizzes past, harmlessly missing when the skag simply jerks left and right, causing their aim to widely buck.

Lomadia’s gunshots peppers the skag’s head. The none-elemental bullets only embed in the plates which the skag ignores- the skag leans down to deliver a series of bone-crushing chomps to the bandit’s outstretched arm. The tongue’s still wrapped around their ankle, keeping them trapped under it.

Those vicious bites are wearing down the bandit’s shield. Lomadia realises that the skag is no stranger to dealing with determined hunters, knowing that it’s only a matter of time until the shield cracks under the repeated attacks. The bandit is firing back until their gun comes up empty. They only scowl.

She can see it before hearing it. With a fizzle, their shield sputters, losing the last of its charge. Lomadia is not the only one to react to the sight. It causes the skag to lunge downwards, all three deadly, barb-lined jaws flaring out to rip the arm off- if a gun hadn’t gotten in the way. 

The grimacing bandit’s somehow jammed their gun in sideways to stop the skag’s three jaws from fully closing around their arm. Still, a few of the tooth-like barbs sink deep in their arm, eliciting a bitten-off shout of pain.

It doesn’t stop the bandit from digistructing a combat knife and shoving it right into one of the jaws. Skag blood spurts out (onto the ground, onto the bandit, it’s everywhere). 

The bandit’s combat knife is plunging in and out of the skag’s jaw with equal fervour, dealing and taking damage. Chunks of plate, hide and flesh spray out.

The incensed, bleeding skag tries to get rid of the gun stuck in its mouth, furiously whipping its head back and forth. The bandit lets out a strangled noise of pain from their trapped arm that’s still caught between the jaw and the gun. Still, their knife continues to stab the skag, never missing.

The blue edge is becoming a different color altogether with all the blood sticking to it, flashing in the sunlight.

Lomadia doesn’t dare fire for fear of hitting the bandit, the skag’s motions becoming more erratic as it simply grows even angrier. What really strikes her is that the wounded bandit is _grinning_ through all this.

If she doesn’t do something, they’ll lose a goddamned arm and she doubts there’s a hospital around here that she can drag an armless, bleeding out bandit to. There’ll also be one pissed off skag to deal with.

Lomadia looks at the rakk turning tight circles above. It’s watching with a bored air. Without giving it any extra thought, she places her fingers in her mouth and whistles, followed by a harsh series of sounds that come deep from her throat. 

Shrieking, the rakk hurtles from the sky several seconds later, promptly crashing into the skag’s side with the speed of a murderous, bird-shaped missile.

The impact causes the tongue to loosen around the bandit’s ankle. It also slams the gun free, sending it clattering to the ground. With a grunt, the bandit tugs themself free before looking up with a stunned expression, hastily backing away to avoid getting caught in the battle between the two giants.

They’re almost matched for size, dust being flung up in every direction.

The rakk is going ballistic on the skag, wings flapping and jaws tearing away at the skag’s plates. One plate is ripped clean off, flung aside and forgotten. The skag’s barbed jaws are clamped on the rakk’s abdomen and wings, puncturing holes in the thin skin. A bite causes it to spit the offending body part out, renewing its attempts to kill the challenger.

Only when the skag has its jaws around the rakk’s throat (the rakk crying out, the sound akin to sharp nails dragging down a chalkboard) does Lomadia move, wanting to save the rakk. The bandit dives in as well. 

The bandit snatches the skag’s exposed tongue up in one hand. Grimacing, they wrench hard on it before the skag can think to retract it. The skag chokes, letting the rakk go in favor of swinging its head around to get rid of whatever is holding its tongue. 

The bandit hangs onto the tongue with their damaged arm, almost getting dragged off their feet. The look on their face is a mix of pain and concentration, teeth bared. Their own river of blood joins the mess on the ground. 

The pistol Lomadia’s never seen in use is in their other hand, firing at the skag, the rounds punching into the soft flesh of its exposed maw.

It’s too distracted to see her coming from the other side, just as the bandit had instructed her to do. Now close enough to reach out and touch its head with her hand, Lomadia slides her shotgun between the rakk and one of the skag’s jaws to deliver a concentrated burst of gunfire straight down its throat.

With a deafening crack, the shotgun blasts a hole right through the skag’s tongue. the scattered shot also sends bullets elsewhere, up into its unprotected, vulnerable brain and down into its stomach, instantly killing it. 

The skag sways, eyes rolling back and up, its separated tongue pooling in the dirt. With a softer thud than Lomadia had ever expected, it falls onto its side, showering her in a fine mist of dust. 

Sweat Lomadia hadn’t been aware of has gathered on her palms, forehead and chest, making her shirt uncomfortably sticky from how soaked it is. Her shotgun almost slips from her trembling hand. Her lips are dry, cracked and in need of water, when she runs her tongue over them.

She is breathing hard, every inhale filling her with air she hadn’t known would be so sweet until now. Adrenaline is rapping out a message via excited morse code right to her terrified brain that lets her know that she is somehow still miraculously _alive_.

They’ve done it. They’ve killed the skag.

The freed rakk stays grounded, wrapping its form protectively around her. Crooning, pained sounds escape it. Lomadia fights the temptation to laugh and almost loses.

A glance informs her that the bandit is also, still alive. They’re now sprawled out on the ground besides the gun the skag had spat out. Their eyes are closed, their chest falling up and down rapidly, almost as though they're having some kind of fit.

She sprints out of the circle that the rakk has formed around her to see if the bandit is alright. They’d better not be dying because she has no idea how graves (including funerals) are done on Pandora, let alone how bandits preferred to bury their dead.

Upon seeing that she’s busy tending to matters that no longer concern it, the rakk leans over the dead skag, keeping one eye on her.

Lomadia reaches the bandit, dropping onto her knees, her gun despawning, expecting to have to try to stabilizing them despite the sizeable gaps in her knowledge about human anatomy- they’re _laughing_.

Laughing, somehow, in spite of the giant, potentially life-threatening, bleeding bite they’d sustained to their arm. She can see more blood welling up from their laughter under the torn fabric. Has the blood loss already sent them into shock?

“What is wrong with you?” She hisses at them, the temptation to smack some sense into them proving incredibly hard to ignore.

“That was some kill,” They cheerfully inform her. “And some pet you got there.” They point with their good hand to the rakk helping itself to some of the meat.

“That’s not my-” Lomadia immediately shuts up, her eyes following their pointing. The rakk had proven itself to be of immense help in that fight. It fixes her with a proud, unblinking stare, jaws already bloody from tearing at the flesh underneath. “Nevermind, just let me see the bite.” 

She turns back to the bandit. The, well, her (since that’s what the universe apparently is insisting) rakk deserves the free meal. It’d saved both of them.

“You’re a doctor?” They inquire, looking curious. “Hey, ow! Don’t jostle it, _fine_ , gawk all you want-” Not bothering to answer their question, Lomadia’s already yanking their injured arm closer. The remains of their jacket sleeve is roughly shoved aside so she can properly examine the wound. 

Lomadia appreciates that they’re not putting up a fight or trying to appear brave, perhaps understanding that she means serious business. It’s probably the death glare on her face that shuts down any more protests on their part.

Despite her fears, the bite’s not that deep, not reaching bone. Where the barbs had penetrated skin, there are small holes with blood oozing out of them. With the failed maulings, it’d torn apart skin to expose muscle, leaving great, messy gouges behind. It’s enough to expose threads of pink, reddish muscle. 

Those are also bleeding. Bleeding is bad. She knows that much. How is the bandit not having an apoplexy right now? They’re fairly composed.

The jacket had absorbed most of the damage. That’s proof of the rumoured durability of Dahl manufactured clothing. What skin has been torn up can be bandaged over and washed out with water, preferably water that’s been treated or not already drunk from. 

There’s some back at her current lodging. It’ll do. She doesn’t have any medical supplies on her, seeing as her campsite is only fifteen minutes away.

Faced with the lack of other options, the bandanna (a pale brown with a pattern of owls along one edge) around her head is ripped off. She ties it around the bite to the point of making the bandit wince.

“Come with me back to my camp,” She sharply orders, getting up and dragging them upright with her. The bandit stops wincing and instead, looks taken aback at the abruptness of her tone.

“The skag-” They yank their arm out of her hands, standing up and stepping towards the carcass.

“You can’t be serious-” Lomadia can’t believe that they’re focused on the dead creature when there are more pressing matters to deal with.

The bandit rounds on her, glaring. “That meat can feed my gang for weeks, I’m not leaving it,” They snap at her, jaw set, the sudden fierce spark in their eyes daring her to argue. She sighs, seeing their point.

“Fine, get the meat and meet me at my technical.” She turns to head off back to the technical first. If they die of shock, it’s their fault. 

Ten minutes later, the bandit finds her there, bloody gloves nowhere to be seen. They silently climb into their own technical, following her back to her campsite. 

Once they’re at her campsite, they both disembark. Her campsite is set in the middle of a patch of deserted forest camouflaged by a series of hills, a paradise of perpetual green somehow persisting. It’s a literal oasis.

A plentiful creek merrily bubbles through the center of it all, providing her and the rakk enough water (once filtered; her rakk drinks it as it is) for the time being.

The bandit glances around as she leads them into the abandoned shack currently serving as her temporary home. It’d been remarkably intact when she’d come across it. There’s no sign of the owners returning to claim it and as such, Lomadia has no compunction nor guilt about using it for the time being.

It’s not like she’s out to set it on fire or make a mess befitting a bandit gang (ah, perhaps she shouldn’t think that, considering current company).

Going ahead, she jimmies open the wooden door to admit the bandit, dragging them by the good arm towards a chair. They permit her to be guide them over, too engrossed in taking in her home.

The inside of the shack is ordered, matching her preference for a chaos free environment. A single bed with her sleeping bag piled on top of it, a table barely big enough to hold a person’s meal, plus a rickety chair. 

In the corner is a concrete floor fitted with a drain and a bit of tied up tarp serving as a shower curtain. A wooden tub (large enough to hold a bucket’s worth of water) is propped up against the wall. A punched bucket hangs from a hook close by the tub.

“Take off your jacket,” She orders in a less brusque tone than the one she’d used earlier, pulling her medkit out of the storage unit parked at the foot of the bed.

The bandit raises both eyebrows at the order. The situation is dire enough in that Lomadia refrains from cursing at her bluntness. She should take a page from their book and rephrase her order.

If they waggle their eyebrows, they can help themself once she’s thrown the medical supplies at their head.

Thankfully, the bandit says nothing. That’s somewhat disappointing. They shrug, undoing the blotted bandanna (wrestling with the knot she’s tied around it for a minute), finally unzipping their jacket to hang it on the back of the chair. They’re wearing a grey tank top underneath that’s loose on their broad, freckled shoulders. 

The smell of fresh blood leaks into the air. The door will have to be propped open to drain it from the inside of her shack.

Lomadia can hear her rakk flapping around on the metal tin roof. It sticks its head in through the hole there to have a gander at what they’re up to. Seeing that nothing exciting is happening, they withdraw but remain on the roof, throwing shadows across the floor with its serpentine body and tail.

The bandit watches it, perhaps a touch intimidated, judging by the wary look directed at it. 

She picks out bandages, a plastic bowl and a still sealed canteen of water. After a moment of thought, she adds several wipes to the bundle. 

The bandit silently holds out their damaged arm (the skin as tanned like their face, more muscled than she expected, given how rangy they appear). With nothing to stop it, fresh blood runs down the curve of their elbow to drip onto the floor.

“Sorry about the mess I’m making,” The bandit sheepishly remarks, watching the drops fall. The lid of the canteen snaps open.

“It’s fine, you just hold still,” Lomadia crisply says, focusing on finding a sterile wipe and dabbing it with water. If they’d expected her to faint at the sight of blood, they got another thing coming 

She hands it over and grimly, the bandit takes it. Steeling themself, they apply it to their wound.

The bandit immediately reacts to the water pouring over their wound by biting back a loud curse. They clap the rest of their hand over the wet cloth, doubling over on the chair, breathing hard through their nose.

Lomadia’s hands are already on them, firmly but gently pulling them upright. They eventually dab at the wound, grimacing the whole time. The stained cloth is thrown to one side. The bandit reaches for the canteen.

Most of the water sloshes onto the floor instead of into the tub she’d provides (not that it matters much, seeing as it isn’t her own floor to being with). The canteen dribbles. Seeing that it’s now empty, the bandit puts it down, picking up the bandages, clumsily unrolling them with one hand.

She plucks it out of their hands and impatiently unrolls it for them. Changing her mind, she begins to wrap the bandage around their arm, concentrating so that most of it properly covers the wound without slipping off or cutting off the circulation to their arm. 

First aid’s not exactly a skill she practices often, on herself or anybody else. They should be flattered she’s going to this much effort to help them. Also, they are not to be sorely mistaken; her stance on bandits is still the same.

“Too tight?” Lomadia glances at them, the first layer now set. 

They shake their head, letting her adjust the second and third layers as they’re placed. Years of bandaging up creatures that had a habit of squirming has honed her bandaging ability to an art form.

At last, she tucks in the last bit. The bandit flexes their arm to see if any of it comes undone. It’s not her best work but it’ll suffice. Another piece that refuses to let itself be tucked in twice earns a chagrined sigh from them.

Lomadia steps forward and reties her dirty bandanna around it. She has a few more in storage from her last trip into a town. Surprisingly, she doesn’t mind if this one (even if it is her favourite) is going to a greater cause.

Satisfied when it doesn’t come loose as well, the bandit glances around the tiny shack once more, smiling. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that, helping me with this.” They raise their arm, indicating the bite.

“You spotted the skag,” She easily says as though that might explain her actions. The appraising look is back on their face. “That’s going to scar, by the way,” is her awkward observation.

All she’d thought about had been making sure that after all that, the bandit won't die from something less idiotic, like infection. Now that that’s over and done with, she can’t think of what to do. Parting ways is the logical step.

The bandit stands, one hand planted on the back of the wooden chair to keep them steady. They clumsily pull their jacket back on, the ruined edges of the torn sleeve fluttering.

“Nah, taking it out was all you. Before I forget, this here’s your portion.” They reach down to their belt, withdrawing a freezer bag bulging with meat. “Besides, scars ain’t nothing new to me, so don’t worry.” The bag is held out. ”And I got a great story to go with it.”

Lomadia takes the offered bag. Refusing it would spit on their teamwork. The weight alone tells her that this is more meat than she’s ever walked out of the hunting grounds with. They could have just not handed over the bag and left her to hunt to make up for what she didn’t claim. It’s awfully charitable of them. 

Are they _pitying_ her? Oh, she has a few choice words to say about that. Immediately, she understands that this is their way of repaying her for helping patch them up.

Flushing, Lomadia shoots them a grateful look. “This doesn't mean we’re going to work together next time,” She mumbles.

“See you next week,” They brightly say, grinning from ear to ear as they exit her shack.

Before she can stop them to deny it, they’re already out the door. By the time she’s stumbled out, their technical’s taillights are vanishing amongst the trees.

\--

Contrary to what she'd claimed after that incident, their run-ins with one another eventually become joint forays into the hunting grounds. 

Perhaps the loneliness of her chosen isolation’s had been eating her away, taking its time so that every nibble’s unnoticed, to the point of making her crave human interaction without realising it. Interactions with the bandit’s been fulfilling that need for another human soul to talk to. She hadn’t realised it either, not at the time.

Little by little, Lomadia opens up about how she came to wander on Pandora and in turn, the bandit returns the favor.

The bandit’s name is Arsenal, an odd name for a person but one that fits. She doubts it's his real name. There’d been a single moment of hesitation before he’d told her it, accompanied with a look steeped in wariness.

Had he expected her to laugh? The way his fingers had closed around the grip of his gun tells her of swift retaliation awaiting those who had. He’d clearly relaxed when she hadn’t. 

There are plenty of reasons to disguise one’s real name. Lomadia has no interest in prying. Ask no questions and there’ll be no lies, yes?

She hadn't come to this planet to find friendship, though it’d very well found her. Arsenal never presses her to talk whenever the two of them feel that long stretches of silence prove more appropriate than awkward conversations that felt forced. She in turn, never harasses him to fill them in with small talk or half-hearted attempts at conversation.

Other people would have surely found that their lack to rush to get to know one another strange. Other people certainly didn’t go out of their way to respect a bandit who is capable of showing them basic courtesy (minus the bit where she’d almost shot them).

It’s probably a factor as to why they’ve become accustomed to seeing each other at the hunting grounds. The rakk seems to trust him to look after her, likely remembering that he’s the one who’d let it eat whatever had been left of the skag’s corpse.

Three weeks later, Arsenal goes so far as to wait for her on the rock by the entrance whenever she turns up, having learned by heart the days and the times of her arrivals. Similarly, if he’s running late (sometimes an inevitability, what with his affiliation, and living half an hour away), Lomadia takes his place on the rock.

She’s never seen any need to change a habit that’s become a minor part of her life, one that’d led to this strange friendship between a wanderer and a bandit.

\--

He teaches her how properly shoot in a secluded corner of the hunting grounds, where the ricocheting shots won’t draw attention from anybody (or the wildlife).

It happens like this: they are both sprawled out in the blissful shade of an overhang near the spot where she’d first shouted at him. He’s got both arms cushioning his head, boots propped up on a conveniently located rock. The Vladof assault rifle he’s usually carrying rests patiently by his head. 

He’d actually cleaned it of skag spit, having taken it apart during one memorable post-hunting session, complete with a ramble about guns and their care. Most of it’s lost on her. Lomadia had to fight a smile about her notion of him knowing guns inside-out being right.

She’s resting her back on the cool wall (as cool as it can get out in the middle of nowhere, an overheated plain with no proper shelter to be found for miles). Her current task consists of skinning a rakk that’d had the misfortune to pick a fight with the one following her around. As usual, her rakk had shown it who’s the boss in these parts.

Lomadia looks over at Arsenal, mostly to check that he’s still alive. Both of his eyes have slid shut, mouth set in a content line. If the lines of his jacket weren’t calmly rising and falling, she could have said that he’s dead. Her sense of humour permits that much of a morbid observation.

Had she been an artist, she would have flipped open a sketchbook and done her damned best to capture his profile right there and then. Since she’s not, she continues diligently picking away at the dead carcass almost baking in the sun.

Minutes slip by. The both of them have nowhere to be. As far as she knows, she’s not in any great hurry to rush back to her home. Arsenal? She can’t say the same for him. 

He’s probably here to kill time (though it’s a strange way of doing so and she’s not about to lecture him on spending his time on more worthy pursuits; it’d be like calling the pot calling the kettle black).

Arsenal randomly wakes with a jolt, banging his head on the low ceiling from forgetting where he is. Swearing profusely, he rubs at his forehead, fingers dragging through his bed head of hair. Lomadia suppresses a chuckle. It serves him right for falling asleep in a cramped space where their elbows are almost bumping.

He yawns, a gloved hand smothering it and slowly blinks, looking like he’s about to nod off again. He takes off the gloves when he’s not doing anything, throwing them down wherever. There are grease stains and some other bits (suspiciously like flesh) clinging to it sometimes; she doubts he’s ever changed gloves between tasks.

“You still not done skinning that thing?” He spots the wing sticking out besides him, bits of it strewn all over the ground ahead of them where she'd tossed the parts she’s not taking back with her.

“Just one more wing to go,” She coolly says. He rests with his back to the wall, mimicking her. Since he’s taller, he has to slump down to fit. 

He grins at her. That grin promises a surprise. Lomadia suppresses the urge to shove the dead rakk at him. “Hey, I’ve seen you shoot and can I ask you something?” He raises a bare hand. From the tone of his voice, whatever question he wants to ask has been bothering him for some time now. “But you got to swear not to stab me with that knife.”

“What?” Lomadia fixes him with a searching look.

Not missing a beat, Arsenal grins and asks with gusto, “Where’d you learn how to shoot?”

She almost flings the knife at him, her arm jerking up. This causes Arsenal to recoil, despite wearing a shield. The overhang doesn’t allow that much room for him to exactly dive away from her. 

The upside is that he does bang his head again, which makes up for not actually being able to hit him. Lomadia permits herself a snort as he fails to bite back a pained ‘fuck’.

Eyes watering, he watches her balefully. “I just think you could do with some improvement,” He suggests, voice cracking from the pain. A cursory feel of his head reveals a lump forming.

“And how do you propose on improving how I shoot?” Lomadia definitely slices through the wing with more force than necessary, shearing the hide into jagged halves rather than neat strips. Her shooting isn’t that _bad_. She can hit what she’s aiming for. Most of the time.

“I could.” He pauses here, perhaps gauging the likeliness of her actually taking that knife in her hand and running him through with it. Arsenal falls silent for a moment before deciding to take the plunge. In his eyes, it’s completely worth the risk. “Teach you, if you wanted.”

She mulls over his offer, putting down the bloody knife and shoving the remains of the dead rakk off her. “What did you have in mind?” It’s not Arsenal’s imagination that’s while Lomadia sounds huffy, she’s serious about taking up the offer.

It’s daring but Arsenal intends to be the target practice. He brushes off all her concerns that she might accidentally well, shoot him.

“With the peashooters you have? Nah.” He rolls his eyes, grinning.

Just to prove his point, he hefts her shotgun into his hand and fires it right into his own chest. He grunts but remains standing. Taking a shotgun blast like that to the chest is no easy feat. His shield ripples, reforming a moment later without having shattered.

Lomadia drops her hands from where they’d flown to her mouth in shock, glaring at him. Arsenal grins, reloading her shotgun for her. She takes it back.

It’s the end of all her protests. Some part of her finds a perverse enjoyment in shooting at a bandit (despite the fact that Arsenal had basically volunteered). About two weeks later, the lessons speak for themselves in the form of her being able to bring down more skags without fear of wasting her ammo. 

Lomadia pointedly ignores how smug Arsenal is, choosing to cite, “Coincidence.” He knows she’s just peeved that his advice is spot on, plus it’s having a clear effect.

\--

It’s one of those times where they’re resting up after having moved, skinned, buried and stored their kills. The last three tasks are carried out at her shack of course, once they’ve trussed up the kills and thrown them into the tarp lined back sections in their technicals to be driven to her place. 

Arsenal graciously lets Lomadia skin all the skags after she’d volunteered after few weeks of knowing each other. It gives her ample opportunity to examine and study the skag’s external biology and internal anatomy. 

Arsenal is more than willing to endure her observations, nodding as he goes about maintaining his guns, as well as her own. 

Not that he’d ever begged for getting saddled with that tiresome duty but she quotes, ‘take good care of your guns and they’ll take care of you, is all I’m saying’. That’d probably been innuendo, judging by the way he’d waggled his eyebrows at her after. He’d laughed at her withering glare.

For every specimen that’s not riddled in the limbs, head and body with her own messy shots, she’s piecing together valuable knowledge of what these creatures are. The fact that nobody has seen fit to put together a guide to is perplexing.

“Well, nobody wants to get mauled,” Arsenal had pointed out, earning a sigh. 

It’s somewhat stereotypical of him to live up to being a bandit, albeit in unexpected ways. The ability to endure numerous shots to the chest from point-blank range during the lessons and shrug them off after, for one. 

There is a steady improvement in her shooting, based off the bullets she extracts from her own kills. Admitting that Arsenal’s got impeccable aim will make him insufferable for hours. That said, he probably knows and just wants to hear her say it out loud. His oversized ego is another bandit trait that she suspects is compensating for something else.

Hence, that’s the reason why she prefers dissecting the ones Arsenal’s put down: his kills tend to be far cleaner, consisting of a few well-placed shots straight through the head. It’s rare when his shots end up elsewhere.

It also makes the chances of finding a busted bullet during any meal including said meat less likely. That’s a surprise sure to ruin anyone’s day.

In exchange for her skinning the skags, Arsenal also had insisted on single-handedly lugging them down from the back of the technicals. It’s mostly to avoid the scenario of the both of them getting covered in well, a number of bodily fluids that neither of them particularly like the feel or smell of.

The logic of the gesture spares her having to take a shower as well; the most mess she makes only goes up to her elbows, and that’s while she’s working.

There’s a bunch of sticky, solid purple spheres neatly piled in a plastic container next to her. It’s the result of her digging in what sort of disgusting but ingenious plumbing that’s a skag’s digestives and intestines bundled up in one. 

She’s found several as big as her palm, to small and dainty ones resembling pearls. To the touch, they’re covered in a rank slime, possessing a texture akin to that of eggshell. The faint smell of meat beginning to go off emanates from them. Fortunately, she keeps disposable gloves for handling suspicious items like these.

A grossed out Arsenal had taken one look at them and declared them to be ‘skag pearls’. A bit of flattery eventually coaxed him to tell her more.

“Please put a lid on them first,” He’d begged, staying as far away as possible. Lomadia obliged, tamping the lid down as far as it could go on the container.

“So, spill. What are they good for?” Lomadia gave a rare grin. She’s used to dealing with all manner of liquids and objects smelling worse. Much, much worse.

“Only two things, really. One, they’re pretty rare and are worth a lot to jewellers. Two, crack them open and you get your face eaten off by skags.” Arsenal wrinkled his nose, throwing a disdainful look at the container. “The pearls give out some funky hunger pheromones that signals to every fucking skag around for miles when broken, so there.”

“How do they form?” Her curiosity drove her to ask.

“Fuck, I don’t know!” had been his chagrined response. “I’m going to get some fresh air, the smell’s getting to me.” With that, he’d marched far away where the stench hadn’t yet polluted fresh air.

Lomadia sold the pearls at the first jewellers that she can find and splits the profits with Arsenal, much to his surprise. “You could have lied to me, but you didn’t,” is all the explanation she gives. He reluctantly accepted the money.

In any case, as it is after every trip back, Arsenal’s using the temporary shower rigged up in one corner of her shack. The door is partially propped up open with an empty ration can filled to the brim with stones stolen from the creek. 

More enterprising people would take the chance to stickybeak. More enterprising people would probably be shot in the forehead by him for peeking. She’d much rather prefer focusing on the job at hand, cataloging the number of muscles in a skag’s front left leg.

Her rakk is sunning itself on the roof of the shack, wings spread out, head dangling over the side to watch her. She pays it no attention, only occasionally tossing up giblets for it to chew on to avoid it flapping down and taking large bites of the other kills awaiting their turn to be cut up.

Through the ajar door, she can hear the rush of water being dumped out. Arsenal’s probably upending the bucket over his head at that moment.

Lomadia only ever bothers to shower from the neck down. On days where she feels it’s unnecessary to fully strip, she opts to just wipe herself down with a damp towel. 

She doesn’t quite get why he bothers to be so thorough, taking a full shower every single time.

“Why do you always take a full shower?” She raises her voice so that he can hear her. Water noisily sloshes in the tub. He’s probably scrubbing himself down right at that very moment.

“You’re not the one who got covered all over in skag entrails and blood!” is his retort. “I don’t need to shower later if I just shower here.” Five seconds after that, she can hear him put down the bucket. Clothes rustle. He yanks back the shack’s door a minute later, emerging with wet hair standing up on end and grimacing. “Also, I hate showering at the frigate. I get no fucking privacy at all.”

Sometimes Lomadia forgets he lives in a place where he probably has to share his room and everything else with other people (a notion that unnerves her). The privacy he gets when showering at her shack is probably a guilty pleasure that he can’t get anywhere else.

Lomadia easily shifts over to make room for him underneath the bit of metal roof serving nicely as their shade from the sun. 

Arsenal flops down next to her, jacket slung over his shoulder. The sleeve that’d been torn ages ago is a patchwork of thread, seams and stolen pieces of other fabric, she wryly notes, keeping that observation to herself.

“Your shirt’s on inside-out,” She points out without looking from the tendon she’s picking apart.

“Huh? Oh, thanks.” Throwing aside his jacket, he tugs his shirt over his head to fix that.

In her peripheral vision are soldier’s muscled arms that bear traces of a former military background, remnants of old fights, a history known only to him. She also spies a flat chest bearing multiple gashes. She counts eight in total, all over his abdomen, none of them as neat as a ruled line. A fine trail of hair runs lower, below the waistline of his pants.

Only six of the chest scars are more recent, fresher, colored a shade of dark pink like the underside of a fingernail. The other two appear to have healed long ago, paled by time.

While his waist and hips are angular, there’s a subtle softness to them, concealed by the appearance of muscle in other places, notably on his arms and abdomen. It’s only because she’s sitting so close to him that she’s able to observe as much- he pulls his corrected shirt back down over his head.

Fighting to survive day in and day would put muscle on anyone’s bones while taking away fat. Lomadia can personally attest to that. Her own body since arriving on Pandora’s lost any sort of superficial fat and mass.

Her thighs have become thicker and built from all the walking she does. Her skin’s darkened several shades from all the sunlight. Those aren’t the most obvious changes. All the shooting she’s done has tacked more muscle on her arms and shoulders. She hasn’t gotten any skinnier; if anything, she’s gotten heavier and fitter.

Where she hadn’t been capable of lifting up a single sack full of meat before, she can definitely pick up three to four sacks, carrying them quite a way before succumbing to fatigue now. That, coupled with the shooting lessons make her a better force to be reckoned with.

Arsenal yawns, folding up his long legs underneath him so he’s sitting cross-legged by her. The midday hours are making him drowsy, if his persisting yawn is anything to go on. Usually, he spends a couple of hours with her before heading back to his gang with all the meat she puts aside for him.

His company is the price he willingly pays in lieu of money. Lomadia refuses to accept any other form of payment from him, knowing that bandits have very little to begin with. He is far better off using that money to pay the weekly ration subscription. 

As she’s more than happy to point out, she’s doing fine without any charity.

“What’s it like living with bandits?” Lomadia asks the question that’s been bugging her for the past two minutes. 

He is the only bandit she can ply these questions with, not minding them in the slightest. She is careful never to let her prejudices cloud her wording to offend Arsenal. He doesn’t seem to mind explaining aspects of the life he lives.

“Loud,” is the blunt, unimpressed reply he gives, after a thoughtful pause. “I like my gang but I wish they’d be less egotistical sometimes. They pick the stupidest fights!” He sits up properly, both hands already gesticulating, eagerly launching into a story, “You’re not gonna believe this, but the other day, I had to wreck someone’s face by taking pliers to their mouth for-” He cuts himself off, snapping his mouth shut, hands dropping to rest on top of his knees.

When she lifts her head in puzzlement at the abrupt silence? There’s a flush rising amongst his freckles. “And then?” She prompts, genuinely wanting to hear the rest.

Spotting her interested glance, Arsenal turns his head away to survey the horizon with sudden interest. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you those kinds of stories.” Where the pause had been thoughtful before, it's now embarrassed. “I forgot you’re not a bandit,” He adds, softly. “You probably don’t want to hear this shit.”

Lomadia has to wonder whatever gave him that impression? She’s the one who’s been asking stuff about being a bandit- that would probably explain it. 

“Arsenal, I’ve been on this planet for months now. I doubt a little violence is going to faze me,” She diplomatically points out. She jabs him in the side with her very sharp elbows, smiling. “I was a veterinarian, so I also have stories, but if your delicate sensibilities won’t stand for it, I guess I’ll just have to withhold telling you them.”

“Hold up, I’ll tell you if you tell me?” Arsenal turns his head back to face her. If anything, he looks far too interested in what she has to offer.

That one memorable day is spent trading all manner of hideous stories. She laughs, more than she’s ever laughed in her entire life before, her chest muscles aching from the workout. For the first time in months, she’s happy, truly happy.

\--

One day, she finds a different bandit sitting on the rock where Arsenal usually sits. There’s a technical with a paint job that she’s never seen before parked nearby. It’s not Arsenal’s, so who is this stranger? Before she can retreat to figure out what to do, the bandit spots her and rises to their feet, uncrossing their arms.

Lomadia is halfway to pulling a gun out on them when she notices that their jacket is the same navy blue as Arsenal’s one. They must be part of the same gang. 

They stop a metre away from her, giving her a once-over, arms crossed over their chest. Her hand drops to her side, fingers curling atop the digistruct module resting snugly against her hip.

The expression on their face is neutral. “Lomadia?” They stiffly inquire. Their tone is polite enough.

She says nothing, made warier by the fact that they know her name. She has an excellent idea of who this person is, thanks to whatever snippets Arsenal’s told her of his bandit background.

“What do you want?” Going straight to the point, she lifts her head to look them right in the eye. Arsenal's made it clear that he had no intention of telling his gang where he hunts- unless something’s happened to him.

They are unfazed by her piercing stare, matching it with their own. “Arsenal can’t hunt anymore,” They bluntly state.

The words cause something (cold, like the dreaded news that the newborn pups they’d been nursing had died overnight due to unknown complications) she can't describe to plummet from the middle of her chest, straight into her gut. 

“What?” She blinks at them, dropping her guard. As quickly as it’s dropped, she replaces it, thickening the layer with wariness.

“Arsenal can’t come here to hunt anymore,” They repeat, slower this time, without any hint of inflection in their voice. It sounds as though they’ve spent time on how to deliver the message.

“What happened to him?” Lomadia demands, trying to hang onto her composure that’s about to slip. It’s not a mistake, nor had she misheard them.

A flicker of irritation flashes over their face. It’s gone in the next second, replaced by neutrality once more. “He got shot in the leg during a skirmish.”

Shot? Images of Arsenal bleeding out on the ground flash through her mind. He can't have gotten hurt, let alone shot. That’s what _shields_ are for. He wouldn’t be that careless, not that stupid as to go running around in the middle of a fight without- the other bandit hadn’t said he’d died yet.

“Is he dead?” She is not ashamed to say that her voice catches on the last word, fearing what she’ll hear. The cold thing in her stomach expands to her chest, her lungs filling with it. Deep breaths, Lomadia reminds herself. There’s still hope.

The bandit answers her with a slow shake of their head. “Might as well be.” A pause follows. It’s long enough to tell her the bandit is debating on telling her more, fixing her with a contemplative look. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s not waking up,” They calmly add. 

The fact that they’re so calm evokes a twinge of annoyance inside her. Aren’t they friends? Didn’t they care?

Lomadia takes a single breath, slow, lasting as long as it takes for her hand to rise to her mouth. An emotion she’s never felt before winches in her chest, painful, hard and raw. It’s not until years later that she can name it: loss. Grief, maybe. Emotions can’t be summed up in just one word, with the intensity of the blow to her heart.

“Take me to see him.” The bandit shoots her a sharp glance that comes easily to them as if they’re used to delivering them. _Please_ , is what the look she’s giving him is saying, even if it’s out of the question.

She knows what he’s saying with that look: no. Indignant anger is what fuels her to stride right on over, stopping in front of them.

The fact that she barely comes up to their chin doesn’t stop her from tilting her head back to glare at them. In comparison to all the other times, she doesn’t bother to hold back. They simply regard her coolly, with an casual arrogance that reminds her of the Arsenal she’d first met, before everything, before _this_.

If there's a rule in bandit etiquette about not seeing their wounded, Lomadia doesn’t give a fuck. Let her see him before he dies, even if she has to walk unarmed into their stronghold under heavy guard.

“It’s not a good idea,” The bandit eventually tells her, every word sounding as though they’d chosen them with care. Perhaps Arsenal had warned them to be nice to her. They’re watching her with, what, some sort of newfound respect in their gaze? “If you want to see him again, you’re better off just waiting here.”

She doesn’t want their fucking respect, she wants to see Arsenal and fuck it if this bandit tries to stop her- already, even the tempting, rash idea of breaking into a stronghold is too ridiculous. She’s only one person. One person can’t possibly hope to storm a stronghold. 

Arsenal also probably wouldn’t appreciate her shooting his friends. Never mind that he’d probably laugh and tell her ‘not friends, _target practice_.’

It takes every bit of willpower that she can dredge up to abandon that idea of sneaking in to see them. Unfortunately, given that all her willpower is spent on not pursuing that idea, there’s nothing left to stop her from punching the bandit in the face.

Their head snaps back from the force of her punch. A pained grunt and a step back follow in the second after. Astonishment breaks the neutral expression they’d been wearing; they’re now regarding her with newfound irritation.

The knuckles of her hand stings, aching down to the very bone; she’s never quite punched anybody before but if this is what it feels like, she should do a lot more punching in her life. It doesn’t matter that they’d just been the messenger. 

All too satisfied at having vented her feelings in the best way possible, Lomadia puts her hand down. Without a backwards glance, she storms off to her technical, not bothering to stick around for the aftermath of her action. 

She knows for a fact that she’d punched them hard enough to bruise. Good. Let that remind them for the next few days of what they’d said because fuck them.

The thought that Arsenal would probably laugh at the punch makes the feeling in her chest ache, painfully so.

Blood is trickling down from Daltos’ nose. Some of it’s running down into his mouth, a familiar metal tang with a hint of bitterness. That’s nothing new.

On the other hand, that punch had been the very last thing he’d expected. Well, okay, fair enough, he’d sort of predicted it. He didn’t actually think she’d ever hit him hard enough to give him a bloody fucking nose.

Needless to say, he’s impressed, once he’s curbed the impulse to shoot her in the back of the head, watching her go. 

Arsenal is going to piss himself laughing, once he hears that Lomadia had decked him for refusing to let her into the frigate. That is, if Arsenal ever wakes up from the botched removal of the bullet that’s still buried in his left leg.

\--

“What were you planning on doing if you never got stuck on Pandora?” Lomadia drops the question while they’re both skinning skags. Arsenal looks taken aback, stopping his butchering of a flank. 

There’s skag blood everywhere, painting the piece of neon blue tarp that all the meat is piled up on a vivid maroon. The air is permeated with the scent of purposeful slaughter (the different is that there’s no fear, just add a layer a matter-of-fact to make it taste better).

While she’s answered him (she’d be traveling like she is at the moment), he’s never exactly done the same. That bugs her in the way that someone’s avoided answering her about what they really fed their pet for them to end up with rolls of fat that couldn’t explained away by ‘tender loving care’.

Arsenal puts down the dirty knife he’s holding, wiping his forehead with the back of his gore slicked hand. He opens his mouth to answer. He changes his mind, swallowing, glancing away at her rakk that’s doing cartwheels in the sky after another rakk, caught in a petty squabble over territory.

“Nothing, forget about it,” He hastily says. The color’s drained from his face. It's only noticeable by the way his freckles have grown lighter, and from how close she’s sitting to him.

“You can tell me.” Only if you want to, is the implication resting in Lomadia’s words. It’s disappointing if he doesn’t want to, but she’s not going to force him to answer. She can live with it (sighing, as she’d simply dispensed with another lecture about ‘healthier choices in pet food’).

“Nah, it seems real silly, now that I think about it.” Brushing her off, Arsenal wipes his hand on a rag that goes onto the discard pile. He hefts up the heavy bag of meat and tucks it into his inventory. He reloads his rifle next, the motions busier than usual. Avoiding her gaze, he marches over to his technical, climbing in. “See you next week,” He calls out over his shoulder.

She blinks at the use of a neutral tone. It’s the first time he’s ever displayed anything like ‘discomfort’ in her presence.

Lomadia doesn't see Arsenal again until two weeks after that. When they do see each other, he doesn’t mention the incident. For the sake of not drawing attention to it lest it sours their relationship, Lomadia keeps her mouth shut. Her mind dwells on it far longer than she should: what could it possibly be? The guilt abates, in time.

It’s not until four more weeks that he reveals the answer. To be honest, she’d forgotten about it by then, up until he takes a deep breath and blurts out, “Transition.”

“Say that again?” Lomadia blinks owlishly at him, the only indicator of her bafflement. 

She knows what the word means. Her knowledge of human biology (and anatomy, to an extent) does cover that much. It’s only because she’d been too busy concentrating on picking out a path amongst the dense scrub that’d grown over their trail that she doesn’t quite catch what he says. 

She wants to be sure she’s heard him right.

“Transition,” Arsenal slowly repeats as though he’s had the word sitting in his mouth for the past few weeks. It stretches out with his drawl, reminding her of globs of melted taffy stuck in teeth. “That’s what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten stuck on this planet.” The next sentence is a touch more decisive. It tells her that he’d made up his mind a long time ago.

She’d expected a more typical, run of the mill answer. “An admirable goal,” Lomadia settles on saying to avoid making him fret about the pause she’d let occur. “I’m sorry to hear you can’t do that now.”

A shrug is what she gets in response. “It ain’t so bad. I could do without the bleeding though.” He grins. “That’s my only complaint.”

“How did you?” Lomadia makes a vague gesture towards his chest as the two of them step over a sprawling bush.

“Dahl paid up for the surgery in exchange for me joining up with them as an officer.” As they walk, he jabs his thumb at himself, miming two slicing motions across his chest. “It’s just about the only decent thing they did for me.” When he puts his hand down, there is the faintest tremor to it. 

He stops in his tracks right in the middle of the path. Lomadia also collides with him, stepping off to the side just in time. Where they’d been matching each other stride for stride (in spite of his height and longer legs, he slows down for her benefit), she’s a step ahead of him.

They’re still close enough for Lomadia to see Arsenal swallow once. Twice. She senses that he's not yet done talking, patiently awaiting whatever it is he has to say. Tilting her head lets her take in how his face has fallen, a shadow of ‘what if’ shrouding him in the pain of ‘what could have been instead’.

They have no shortage of time, and this isn’t the easiest topic to talk about. It must have taken him weeks to gather up the courage to tell her let alone more to find the words. The smallest of steps brings her closer so they’re mirroring one another.

He’s only ever shown this much pain to her, only once before.

Arsenal’s voice drops, growing softer, thoughtful, every word threaded with a pain that’s as familiar to him as the scars all over on his body. She has to strain her hearing to pick up on what he says next. “Sometimes, I end up wondering what it’d be like if I ever did get the chance, though. Can’t help torturing myself like that.”

It’s during times like these that Lomadia is glad that her silence can take over where words aren’t enough. She watches Arsenal close his eyes, appearing to pull himself back together from the smallest lapse in his composure.

It’s almost voyeuristic, sneaking a glance into his private thoughts, akin to a sneak peek into someone’s diary, sitting in on a confession or eavesdropping on a conversation meant only for two pairs of ears, not three. The only difference is that he’d given her permission to watch, letting her in.

“Thank you for telling me. It can’t have been easy.” The sincerity in her tone coaxes a half-smile from him. She smiles back.

“Sorry for not telling you sooner, since you answered my question ages ago.” Arsenal gives an empty laugh, moving to walk back onto the trail. “Right, that’s enough of that. Where would you like to go today?”

Fuck, if Lomadia had any way of predicting the future, this should have been the moment she hugged him.

\--

The temptation to go and storm the stronghold waxes and wanes as time passes. Lomadia oscillates between chastising herself for being rash instead of patient, then for being useless and doing nothing rather than taking action. Staying still and idling away time has never posed her so much of a challenge before. 

Keeping busy is a prerogative because if she lets her mind drift, it always returns to thoughts of Arsenal. He might as well be her north on a compass, with how he inadvertently keeps dragging her attention back to him.

When she’s not berating herself for her lack of action or choosing to prioritise her survival over barging in to see him, she worries, an incessant prick of pain at the back of her mind. 

It makes her dreams fill with anxious half-thoughts, imaginary scenes of playing out from her sub-consciousness burning itself out on doing its very best to cope with the absence (because calling it a ‘loss’ would mean giving in to her fears) of her dear friend.

She waits for two months, flitting between towns, the hunting grounds and her shack. That’s two months of blind hope dwindling as time goes on, of endless waiting, being on edge for news that’ll never come. Sure enough, the weather reports bring her ill tidings: the wet season is imminent so it’s either stay or go.

While it breaks her heart to do so, Lomadia chooses to go.

\--

Arsenal’s left leg is throbbing from where it’s tucked underneath the dashboard. His right leg remains pressed to the accelerator, urging the technical onwards. With every jolt and bump on the road, his left leg is jarred into more pain.

The rising and falling waves of nausea is the reason why he hasn’t eaten anything yet. There’s no time to stop by the side of the road and throw up, because every precious second counts.

It’s pain that’s muted, though, not by painkillers but a pain that he is determined to ignore because there is a goal far more important to him than letting his leg rest. He’s spent enough time doing that already.

Never mind that he’s all the way out in the badlands without a guard. He might never regain the use of his left leg but he’s still more than a match for anybody who tries to off him. 

_Please_ , let Lomadia still be there, waiting. For once in his life, let the universe to stop shitting on him. It owes him that much.

Fuck almost dying to infection, fuck the blood loss, fuck the botched operation, and fuck Klemm and Daltos for not leaving him leave the frigate sooner because why can’t they see how important seeing her one more time is to him? 

More importantly, fuck being bedridden for two months as his left leg healed up, the wound closing over in a scarred mess that he shudders to still look at.

He almost misses the turn but lets the technical drift sideways. Once it’s dropped in speed, he guns the engine to head on up the slope. There’s the familiar line of trees. As he enters the clearing, he risks glancing around for the telltale sign of blue on blonde hair or that rakk of her that’s always in the sky.

When he sees nothing, he remains firm in that she has to be here. There's no way that she’d go; it’s only been two months. The rain is late by some minor stroke of fortune (chance, coincidence, fate, it’s all the same to him; his leg being fucked up is just bad luck). 

It stands to reason that she surely can’t have upped and left yet.

Her technical’s not parked outside either. Arsenal leaves his technical in its usual place, hefting himself out of the driver’s seat. He ignores how high up from the ground the seat is (funny, how a little thing like height now makes him wary).

When he puts his left leg down onto the ground, he hisses, stumbling because while he maintains that he's well enough to go and visit her, the truth is that not a second goes by where the pain refuses to abate.

The bullet lovingly grinds against what’s left of his leg muscles with every fucking step. He grits his teeth, forcing one tiny step to happen. Finally, fucking progress. Okay, now follow that up with another step, even if he has to drag said afflicted leg along the ground, drawing out the pain in spades.

Every muscle violently jerks, contracting, pulling, twisting, signalling to flesh that’s no longer attached, growing confused at the lack of response and trying harder. If there was a button to magically make it stop, he’d have punched it the second it appeared in front of him.

It takes him longer than he’d have liked to reach the shack, limping over and in agony the entire time. Biting back hideous curses (with more filling his mind), Arsenal tentatively shoves the door open with a shaking hand.

He expects to see her sitting on the bed. The name he’d been about to say dies on the tip of his tongue. The other word, surprise, is also sucked into the place where words that are never said out loud go. 

The shack is deserted. The wooden tub is resting on its side next to the floor drain. The bucket is hanging off its hook. No sleeping bag sprawled out on the bed. 

Where’s the storage unit that’s always stood to attention at the foot of the bed, the wet, rumpled clothes hanging out to dry on the back of the lone chair? The hole in the roof has been crudely boarded up, a last minute repair job that demonstrates how considerate Lomadia is.

Thick dust covers all the surfaces, clinging to his finger when he runs it along the table, a week old.

It’s as if nobody lived in the shack to begin with.

She’s not here anymore.

The flicker of hope in that he’d get to see her one last time extinguishes. He raises a hand and slams it into the wooden doorframe, rattling it. _Fuck_ , it bloody hurts, but his leg hurts even more and he doesn’t care if the two battle. Maybe they’ll just cancel each other out. 

It’s a crying shame that there’s no antithesis to the new source of pain that’s opened up right in the middle of his chest, where his heart is located.

He sinks down onto the chair, chest heaving not from pain but from disappointment so bitter that it’s like he has a mouthful of blood from having bitten into the inside of his cheek because it hurts, everywhere and no amount of painkillers will ever numb it or make it go away. Everything, even the inside of his brain aches.

\--

When the awaited call comes, Lomadia picks up straightaway. There’d always been the slimmest chance Arsenal would call. She’d never prepared what to say to him if he had. All her attempts to reach him had been bounced back. There’d been little point in growing angry early on.

“So, you’re moving on?” She doesn’t say anything but she knows that he knows that she’s listening. The sound of his voice fills her with relief: he’s alive.

If the universe wants to punish her for ever wanting just that much, she will welcome it with waiting arms, if that is the price she has to pay.

She and Arsenal have never hugged, come to think of it, not while they could have. It’d just never occurred to them.

He speaks as though they’re talking, two people walking side by side through the plains. Only one difference sticks out: he’s not bothering to hide the way his voice has a stutter present where there were none before, cutting into the next word, wobbling over the pronunciations, words tumbling out of him as though he’s emptying out a place in his chest.

“I kind of knew this would happen. I mean, a friendship between a bandit a wanderer seemed too good to be true, but.”

But. 

A single word, a stipulation, denoting a catch of some kind, an exception, an outlier, ripe with the possibility of many meanings and yet, only one will be chosen.

“I liked what we had, though. I hope you did too. I mean it.” A soft laugh, ruined by his voice catching further as he’s struggling to remain calm and is failing. “I also knew you couldn’t stick around forever. You’re not a person who can stay in one place for that long. You’re too restless for that. That’s the opposite of me, now that I can’t do stuff I used to anymore.”

There’s a pause as she hears him swallow. A click of teeth. She tries not to imagine him gritting his teeth, and the look on his face right that second, failing miserably.

Controlled breaths, on the verge of spiralling into wracking sounds, begin to punctuate his sentences in lieu of second long pauses. Lomadia matches the breathing, one, two, three, four, five, in and out, inhale, exhale, that’s it. It’s not working.

“I’m not mad at you either. You got the right to move on and forget about me. Just. Just don’t forget how to shoot, alright? It’s a tough world out there. You take care of yourself.” His voice cracks and it shatters her heart clean into two. “Goodbye, Lomadia. Arsenal out.”

The call dies. The second it does (and he’s _gone_ , once again, it’s not fair, the universe can’t take him away from her twice), she wrenches the steering wheel, causing the technical to skip onto the side of the road where it comes to a sudden stop. Tears are pouring down her face as she fumbles with the ignition, shutting the technical off.

She stays there in the silent technical for however long it takes to stop weeping. The sun dries her tears as they form, stealing them from her with its awful, oppressive heat.

Lomadia curses the open sky for being so bright, colourful and cheerful when it should have been raining, because her heart is aching and the rain will understand what it is to be split in half from within.

Miles away, at the same time, Arsenal drops his hand from where it’d been held up to his ear. He lets his head drop into both of his hands, forcing his fingernails to pinch the skin around his eyes until he’s sure that he’s left marks.

It doesn’t matter anymore, his leg isn't the only thing that hurts now and if he’d started shedding tears midway through the call, he’s sobbing now, the sounds magnified by the tiny space that’s _her_ shack.

Let it hurt: he’ll never meet anyone else like her.

She never bothers to delete the message he left. Contrary to what he says, she never wants to forget him. Her journey to get as far away as possible from the pain takes her to the far northern part of the west coast. 

It helps her to think of the pain as a physical item she can leave by the roadside, even just for a few hours. That’s the illusion she allows herself to believe in, if only to avoid caving in to the temptation to swing the technical around. 

The journey on foot eliminates the option of ever turning back.

\--

Her stay in Oasis lasts much longer than one day, much to her rakk’s annoyance. It takes three whole days for the rain to cease, cloudy skies replacing the overcast dreary weather she’d been caught traveling in. Those three days aren’t boring, though.

Somehow, Nilesy’s become her constant companion during that time, inserting himself so smoothly into her life without her noticing at first. He’s the second person to do so. Well, third, if she counts her rakk as a being (technically the first one to enter her life without any sort of prior warning). 

Nilesy talks enough for the two of them, always having some sort of topic at hand to engage her. Lomadia is grateful for the distractions as she wrestles with the daily sensation of déjà vu.

The rain confines them both indoors. It’s the sort of friendship that crept up on her until too late, she’s developed a soft spot for the man who lets her run hot baths at random simply because there’s nothing else to do but soak until her skin wrinkled. Who knows when she’ll be able to let herself enjoy such a guilty pleasure again?

He talks to her during those times, camped out on her bed with an ECHOnet show playing in the background. The volume’s cranked all the way up high so that she can hear from the bathtub. If at first she’d assume that his chatter would become annoying, she finds that she doesn’t mind it in the slightest.

Traveling on her own for so long has left her an appreciation for human voices that aren’t her own.

They eat together in his kitchen, her schedule mimicking his. Nilesy’s meals are simple, cheap, quick and thrown together featuring whatever he can get his hands on. He cooks for the pleasure of it, and for her. It comes as no surprise that he knows his craft as well as she knows her skag anatomy.

Any attempts by her to cook are rebuffed, with Nilesy firmly insisting that ‘you’re my guest but if you must, you can help set the table’. To her surprise, Lomadia permits the easy compromise, though not without persuading Nilesy to let her also do the dishes.

If she’s staying in his hotel, she might as well help out in whatever way she can. 

Laundry consists of Lomadia piling items into the washing machine, with Nilesy doling out the amount of detergent to use, with the two of them eventually heaving it all into the dryer. Ironing and sorting out what’s dry takes place in the same room, Nilesy ironing and Lomadia folding and stacking.

They make a good team, once they’ve figured out routines. Mostly, Lomadia follows Nilesy around his hotel. To be correct, Nilesy somehow ropes her into tagging along on all his errands.

It feels nice, to be thought of as acceptable company, let alone the kind he willingly sought out to enjoy of his own free will. It’s also flattering.

That said, Lomadia’s the only guest during those three days. Nilesy appears to be accustomed to long stretches of no customers broken up by the rare busload of tourists and thrillseekers. He explained this to her over dinner, of Oasis’ seasonal fluctuation of visitors. She’d listened, finding it fascinating.

Studying people and their habits have never interested her before. Nilesy made it a hobby of is, given how deeply it’s tied to his business.

After that, Lomadia leaves him tips for him to find (nothing too outrageous but nothing that felt like charity). Nilesy accepts them, with a hesitance that belies just how much he relies on them to get by, in the down season.

This causes him to thank her in the form upping his room service game. She laughs as she tells him to ‘calm down, you’re the best host I’ve ever met’. Nilesy’s cheeks go pink in embarrassment. 

Lomadia nurses a suspicion that people rarely complimented him on his exemplary ability to think of her every need and cater to them in every possible manner.

So yes, when the three days are up when the clouds are replaced by the first bout of sunshine in days, it’s disappointment she feels rather not than relief. As it is with her rakk staying put for a long time, it’s itching to leave. 

Nilesy bids her goodbye at the front of his hotel. He clasps both of her hands in her own, looks her right in the eye and firmly says with a brilliant smile, “I’ll see you next time, so please don’t hesitate to drop by.” A wry look is thrown at her rakk. “And please, do bring Mister Owl along.”

The bandage on his hand from what the rakk considered ‘affectionate’ in terms of a bite is still wound tightly around his palm. In revenge, Nilesy’s dubbed it with a nickname sure to cause confusion whenever it’s uttered out loud.

Lomadia hesitates to leave (because the last time she left a place like this, she cried and she really doesn’t want to alienate her new friend by randomly bursting into tears). 

Sure enough, whenever she’s in the area, she drops by. It always makes his and her day. Mister Owl wolfed down the skag meat offerings, so it’s not that far of a stretch to assume it too, enjoyed the trips to Oasis.

\--

Her travels take her far and wide, across a range of landscapes that she emerges from, wiser than ever before, never settling in one place for too long. She’s become what Pandorans call a ‘true wanderer’, living off the land where she can, always taking exactly what she needs and wasting nothing.

It’s about time that she should go and check in on Nilesy and so, Lomadia takes the main road towards Oasis.

Traveling with her rakk via Fast Travel is always a disaster. First she has to coax the creature down. Second, before it can flee once it realises what she’s up to, she has to hit the button. The second they both spawn, her rakk is already scrambling to get into the air. It takes a week for it to get over the shock of being betrayed in such a fashion. 

Lomadia is well aware that her rakk is a drama queen, throwing a minor hissy fit whenever she so much as draws close to a Fast Travel Station, remembering all the times she’s ever had to use one.

She prefers to take the long way regardless of whether it’s scenic or not. There’s more room to stretch out her legs that way.

When she arrives in Oasis, the sun is starting to set. The brilliant sunset bathes everything in a striking orange glow, including the beach and pier. By the time she’s reached the bottom of the hills, the glow is covering the whole of the town. It’s quite beautiful, actually, worth of being printed on a postcard.

Nilesy’s always let her use the back door to enter the hotel, provided she lets him know first via ECHO to unlock it for her.

It doesn’t occur to her that something might have gone horribly wrong when he doesn’t pick up the first or second time she calls. Frowning, she rounds the corner and- the back door is wide open.

Lomadia glances left and right, stopping in her tracks. It’s not like Nilesy to leave the back door ajar to invite trouble in. While Oasis is one of the safer towns on Pandora, there’s always the risk of somebody out there ready to seize an opportunity the second it arose. 

A quick glance around the empty alley confirms that Nilesy’s not outside getting rid of trash. The rising fear of doing nothing peaks, breaking, a wave upon a shore. It drives her to circles the building, peering into every window she comes across. 

The front of the hotel is dark. The door there is locked when she tries it; Nilesy’s never exactly turned business away simply because the sun is setting. Lomadia’s blood is a low murmur in her ears (water in a seashell, a crowd’s hushed talk), teering on the brink of becoming a roar if her pulse ticks up any higher.

The kitchen window is left for last. It’s worth a peek, despite risk of being spotted. There’s a familiar outline almost folded over at one of the kitchen chairs. The stained glass is far too grimy for her to make out anything in more detail. The lack of lighting in the room provides hardly any extra clues or context.

Without any more information to arm her for what she’ll find, Lomadia enters the hotel via the back door, expecting the worst. The heels of her boots rap against the wooden floor, softened by the carpet that stretches forward to intercept the sound, muffling it. 

Nilesy is sitting in the darkened kitchen. An ice bag is held to his head with a shaking hand, condensation dripping down his pale arm. His head snaps up once he sees her, almost bolting out of his chair. Whatever wariness that’s sprung up dissipates upon recognising her.

He sits back down, slumping down onto the seat. Ice cubes languidly clack against one another, a sound that echoes like two glasses being clinked during a toast. “Ravs- oh, it’s just you, Lomadia. You scared me.” He readily admits, every word laced with nervousness that invokes immediate suspicion (and to a lesser extent, worry).

Nilesy turns his body away from her, by a fraction. His hand slides onto his other arm, trying to hide what patterns it. In a matter of three strides, Lomadia can see what patterns his arm. It crushes the air out of her lungs.

Up close, a myriad of bruises cover one side of his face, adorning one arm with sickly blue splashes.

A preparatory breath restores air to her lungs. “Nilesy, what happened?” She asks, her voice as low as it can possibly go when she’s forcing herself to remain calm. The last thing Nilesy needs is more fear and not from her. She reserves the tone for when she means business.

He shrinks away from her, looking incredibly uncomfortable. It takes him a phenomenon all effort for him to look at her. There is only fear in his eyes. “You remember how you found me using a cane?” 

The bruises stand out on his skin under the light of the sunset that’s managed to bypass the blockade of dirt staining the window.

Yes, she remembers. It’s one of the few, unpleasant memories of her visits to Oasis. He’d never told her how he’d come to use one. The next time Lomadia meets him after that, he’d gotten rid of it. she’s never asked, somehow knowing that he’ll never give her a straight answer.

Nilesy’s voice gathers enough speed to cause a pile-up on a crowded highway. “The same people who did that came back here and Ravs walked in on them trying to rob me.” He snaps his mouth, worrying that he’s said too much, shoulders hunching.

Ravs? Nilesy’s mentioned him once or twice. He’s the other person who Nilesy is friends with. As far as she knows, the only other friend he has that’s worth nothing.

His name is not exactly well-known but it’s dropped in the kind of places for her to know that Ravs is a colourful character. It’s mostly more good deeds than bad that accompany the name.

“Where did they go?” She’s really trying not to intimidate any answers out of Nilesy when she very well could. Nilesy hesitates. 

Lomadia lets her gaze soften, to convey the word ‘please’ without having to speak. Sighing, Nilesy points to the door with the hand not holding the ice bag.

“He went after them.”

“You’re going to stay here. I’ll be back.”

“Lomadia-”

“Stay.”

She locks the back door for him as she heads out of the town. A whistle calls her rakk down to her side. 

“Tell me if you see anyone,” She requests. Her rakk eyes her, crest flaring up once before taking off once more. She waits for a few seconds, watching it wheel in the sky before it starts to take off in one direction, flying in circles above an area.

It doesn’t take her that long to reach it. Fifteen minutes of walking deposits her onto a trail with several sets of footprints. Droplets of blood glisten alongside them. Following them and her rakk’s position, Lomadia ends up in a deserted pirate camp.

She is not alone.

Someone ahead is marching towards the door of a lit up house. Lomadia fetches her shotgun from her inventory and approaches them.

It must be Ravs. Nobody else can match the description Nilesy's given her of him. Ravs whirls around to face her, one bloody fist raised. Rage washes off him in waves that sends goosebumps rising all along the skin of her arms under her shirt.

He relaxes but not fully upon seeing her. “Lomadia, is it?” His voice is rough and devoid of warmth. 

The light that sputters into life above the porch. It bathes the two of them in light. Ravs’ shadow lies distorted beneath his feet. Even his shadow bristles with rage. This is not someone she can tangle with and expect to leave after in one piece.

Sensing the same danger, her rakk lands on a palm tree behind her, poised to lunge if needed. Ravs’ eyes calmly flick to it, then back to her. 

If he’s surprised by her choice in companion, he doesn’t show it, taking it in stride, much like her unannounced presence to track down the culprits responsible for hurting Nilesy.

“And you must be Ravs,” She coolly responds. There’s no need to be rude; they have the same goal. 

Ravs understands as much. He smirks. “I’ve finally found the fuckers responsible-”

A panicked voice shouts a plea through the gap in the door of the house, “Help us, this crazy bandit’s gonna kill us!”

Ravs and Lomadia ignore them to size one another up. While Lomadia’s shot people before (killed as well), torturing an apology out of them falls into an area well beyond her expertise. As much as she’d love to, she has no idea how to go about doing so.

On the other hand, it looks like Ravs knows exactly how to go about doing that. How convenient. She takes a step back, entrusting the task to him with a conceding nod. “I trust you know what you’re doing.” A cold glance is directed at the shack. It’s out of her hands now. 

The faces pressed against the window scrabble against the glass, scratching at it in desperation. “No! Don’t leave us here with-”

Ravs’ smirk grows anticipatory. “I knew you’d understand,” He says.

Turning, he breaks the lock off in one go and enters the shack, slamming the door behind him. She gets a glimpse of faces terrified out of their wits, pressing up as far as they can move in the space of their cage. 

There will be no mercy for them tonight and Pandora will not spare any, having run out of it long ago.

Rather than leaving seeing as the matter is entirely out of her hands, Lomadia positions herself several metres back. Gun resting in her hand, she stands guard with every intent to shoot anyone who might try to flee. The next few minutes consist of her taking in the sounds of people screaming as Ravs crushes their bones one by one.

Their babbling, insincere apologies won’t suffice. It should have been easier to leave Nilesy alone. The universe has its way of repaying its dues to those who deserved them.

She shivers (not from the cold settling across the region as the sun continues to set). It’s hard to say how long it lasts. The only indicator of time passing is the dark growing around her, the orange and yellow light fading as pale blues and purples overtake it.

Only when the screams became moans and whimpers of pain does Ravs emerge, dusting his hands off. He closes the door of the shack, the wood snapping in its frame behind him.

The Ravs that walks out of the shack looks mollified. His tense demeanour shifts upon seeing her. “Right! That’s now done.” He strides over to her, seeming pleased. “Broken every single bone in their body and that’s still not enough to satisfy me.” The note of relish in his tone is one she wholeheartedly agrees with.

“Death’s too good for them,” Lomadia simply states. Ravs just gives her an approving look. Had he been expecting her to protest otherwise or go in to finish the job? “How did you find them?” Lomadia also inquires, putting away her shotgun.

“The mayor tipped me off that they were back and I arrived just in time to drive them off back to here.” The conversational way Ravs is explaining to her makes it sound like he's used to tapping people as a means to an end, as well as being no stranger to breaking bones to accomplish a goal.

It’s not a particularly comforting thought but Lomadia’s long since grown used to people taking matters into their own hands on this planet.

It’s certainly interesting to confirm that the rumours are true; she’ll have to keep that in mind if she’s ever in need of help from Ravs.

The walk back to Oasis is filled with silence that she’s accustomed to. The pressing question that bothers her most of all is: why hadn’t she done anything to help Nilesy?

Nilesy doesn’t hate her for doing nothing. He certainly doesn’t hate Ravs either. If anything, he’d been more worried about them hating him for choosing to remain quiet. Guilt swims in and out of her circling thoughts, navigating the flow of her mind with ease.

Oh, Nilesy. Lomadia almost sighs but thinks better of it. Hating Nilesy won’t change the past. He had his own reasons for keeping quiet. 

Lomadia resolves to put in a greater effort to look after him, even if that means having to read between the lines, a skill that her straightforwardness renders rusty. 

A sideways look at Ravs reveals that the much of the barely restrained rage he had from earlier’s drained out of him. At the moment, a tentative, restless wariness is present on his features, his jaw set and the way his eyes are fixed on a point in the distance. 

If he’s regretting not killing those people back there, he’ll find no objection from her if he chooses to do so. Lomadia would prefer leaving them to the mercy of opportunistic stalkers.

Before they walk into the hotel, Ravs steps in front of her. She manages to barely stop herself from colliding with him (his chest, rather), eyeing him with curiosity.

“It’d be nice if you didn’t breathe a word of this to Nilesy,” He whispers, carefully watching her.

It hits her that he’d thought the first thing she’d been about to when getting back is inform Nilesy of all that’d happened. Does he really think she’s that dutiful? The idea is appealing and yet, all she wants to do is sweep it under the carpet so they can focus on helping Nilesy recover. 

“You would lie to him?” Lomadia searches his expression for any trace of guilt for lying. She finds none.

“It’s not lying if it’s by omission,” Ravs observes with a calmness that tells her that he’s used to the act.

There’s a brief pause where she considers both arguments. Either way, it’s not doing Nilesy any favours. “If he asks, I’m telling him the truth,” Lomadia ends up remarking.

“I don’t think he will,” is all that Ravs lightly says.

He turns to unlock the back door with a key fetched from his inventory. He pulls it back to let Lomadia enter first before following, closing and locking the door behind him.

Nilesy is fast asleep at the kitchen table, his head resting on the hand that’s lacking bruises. The bag of ice has long since melted, dripping out of one leaking corner onto the floor. Nilesy’s mild frown stirs up a feeling of protectiveness inside of her, as well as a powerful desire to see him safe, happy and healthy. Anywhere but in this wretched town.

A sideways glance at Ravs tells her that Ravs wants just the very same thing as she does. He steps forward, shoulders set, footsteps measured across the expanse of the kitchen floor towards the sink.

A tap squeaks, shrill, mingling with the sound of water flowing. Ravs washes his hands clean, wiping the blood off him as best as he can. Lomadia finds a rag from the box on the counter and goes to wipe up the ice bag’s watery remains.

With bare, dry hands, Ravs steps over to Nilesy. Lomadia assumes that he’s going to shake him awake. In one move, Ravs simply hefts up Nilesy into his arms, gently cradling him like he would a dozing child. 

Nilesy only twitches, mumbling something that might have been ‘bacony, bacony’, none the wiser to being moved. He must have stayed up waiting for them to return.

Lomadia gets to cleaning up the floor. By the time she’s done, Ravs has walked back in. She’s aware that he’s watching her from across the room, keeping a respectable distance.

“Nilesy talks about you a lot.” His voice has lost the rough edge to it, simply coming across thoughtful. 

“He mentions you as well,” Lomadia modestly concedes. Nilesy talks about her? She's surprised to hear that, especially since she’s not in the habit of talking about him to anyone (like there’s other people she can talk to on a regular basis).

Ravs moves around the kitchen table so they’re standing a metre apart. Lomadia straightens up, the damp rag twisting in her hands. 

“Listen, this might be asking too much, but can you keep an eye on him for me?” At the inquisitive look flickering over her face, Ravs adds, “I can’t stay right now but I’ll be back in the morning.”

She wouldn’t dream of abandoning Nilesy as he is. The idea offends her. Still, a nod satisfies Ravs. He shoots her a grateful smile, inclining his head before he leaves via the same way they came in. She hears the back door close, softly.

Lomadia eventually nods off in the kitchen, letting her head be pillowed by her arms at the chair Nilesy had sat in as he’d waited for them to return.

It’s around dawn when she’s woken up by a loud crash. Jolting awake and blinking blearily, she’s already on her feet, glancing around for the source of the disturbance. Her hand’s in the process of drawing a gun when her mind catches up.

The only danger here is accidentally burning herself on the stove or whatever else might happen during cooking.

With that, the crash had originated from Nilesy’s bedroom. Dashing to the hallway, she slams open Nilesy’s bedroom door, barging into the room without bothering with a knock.

He’s fallen out of bed, wrestling with the sheet that he’d managed to become tangled up in, swearing profusely. Ravs must have tucked him in.

“Fucking sheets, how did I even-” He cranes his head back to spot her standing there, struggling to smother her laughter because he looks so disgruntled. Bare feet agitatedly kick the air.

Lomadia stops laughing to help him up. “Good morning,” She bids.

“Not the best of mornings, I’ll give you that,” Nilesy grumbles, throwing. the tangle of sheets back onto his bed. He calmly runs a hand through his unkempt hair. He squints at her with the lack of glasses (that Ravs had left them neatly folded up on the beside table). “Where’s Ravs?”

“He’ll be back later,” She informs him, half expecting him to ask about yesterday’s events by the way he opens his mouth. 

Nilesy closes his mouth, shaking his head as though he’s decided he’s better off not knowing. Nobody but the cruelest of people would blame him for not wanting to. 

Still, there’s the feeling that Nilesy appreciates what she and Ravs had done for him, in the way that he warms to them, more than ever before. They let him.

\--

She takes Nilesy with her on one of her frequent trips out into the wilderness. It’s the fastest way to reach Ravs, who’s taken up permanent residence in a place called Sanctuary Hole set further down the coast.

The wildlife preservation can run itself. Besides, Zoeya knows to check up on it every now and then for her. If people have need of Lomadia, they know to ECHO her directly.

Anyway, she’d proposed the idea to Nilesy of cutting through uncharted territory as a shortcut. He’d stared at her, mouth hanging open in shock at such a daring proposal.

She’d let him have exactly three seconds of surprise before adding with a smile, “You’ll be with me, of course.”

“Oh! Okay.” He’d clasped his hands together, clearly relieved that he wouldn’t be braving the wilderness on his own. “Sure, sounds like a plan.”

“Nilesy, I’m not going to leave you to fend for yourself,” She’d tactfully added.

“Just checking,” had been his cheeky response.

Nilesy takes the turret of the technical once she rolls to his temporarily closed hotel. Lomadia suspects that he’s the kind of person who wouldn’t shoot without a legitimate reason (and boredom doesn’t count).

At first, Nilesy performs a thorough inspection on the turret, appearing to scrutinise it from all angles, even leaning out of his seat to do so. 

Next, he swings the turret in a full circle and back the other way. Lastly, he makes it crane up, down and to all sides, testing how far it stretch can go before silently deeming it to meet whatever standard of satisfaction he’s got for it.

Lomadia watches all of this with increasing bemusement. She gets that Nilesy’s never exactly been in a technical before and that he preferred skiffs. Given where they’re going, taking a skiff is not the best of ideas, given how noisy and difficult it is to manoeuvre through busier terrain.

That’s not mentioning that the one and only time she had tried to drive a skiff? She’d just fallen overboard when she’d mistakenly turned it too far. In surprise, she’d slid off the deck and had to be fished out of the ocean by one laughing Nilesy.

Sighing, Lomadia shakes her head and climbs into the driver’s seat. “Got everything?” She inquires, running through the checklist (check, supplies, rations, tent, canteens filled, everything in order).

“Yep,” Nilesy confirms, still turning circles in the turret. She starts the technical as gently as possible (somewhat of a difficult feat, seeing as it alway wakes with a massive roar, eager to hit the road again). Nilesy recoils from the sound. Otherwise, he stays in the turret.

They depart Oasis, trundling up the hill towards the highway. Nilesy’s locked up his hotel for the time being and appointed somebody else to be in charge of the water. 

Actually, the only non-drinkable water he has on him is the one he’d apparently siphoned from his pool into a bucket containing a digistruct system specially meant to transport water.

She won’t ask how he managed to get his hands on it. 

“Portable pool,” had been his only cryptic explanation. The truth is that he’d just been worried about people trying to get through the shield in his absence to dip in it, without paying the exorbitant fee. Disgusting; his pool is intended for paid recreational usage.

Half an hour into the road trip, Nilesy had insisted on tuning into a radio station called ‘FyreUK’.

It blares the kind of music that she hasn’t heard since her days working as a veterinarian. Nilesy bobs his head in time to the music, including having a go at singing all and any songs.

He ropes her into singing along as well because he’s of the opinion that ‘everybody has a great voice!’. Sighing out of habit because why does she let herself oblige him like this, she adds her voice to his own. 

They might not be the best singers on Pandora but at least she’s confident that they can carry a tune without making people pay them to shut up.

The two of them sing until they’re hoarse. Nilesy cracks up at her attempt to keep up with a rock song (composed by a bandit band of all things) and she ends up giggling at his attempt to sing opera, adopting a convincing falsetto or dropping his voice an octave where appropriate.

She’d missed this kind of interaction, forgetting that not every conversation needed a purpose behind it. They let silence take over for them as they regain their voices. Nilesy watches the scenery, thirstily drinking it in. It looks like Lomadia’s been right in that he’s never exactly set foot outside of the Oasis region.

She knows the lay of the land, not quite needing to peek at the map to know exactly where she’s going. She’s spent many an hour going over every bit of it, sinking in days that stretched into weeks as she traveled on foot where the technical couldn’t go.

While meaning well, people have remarked that she’s far better off spending her time doing something else worthwhile,or perhaps rewarding? If it’s at the price of not not knowing what the land contains for her hunting trips or to fulfill her curiosity, Lomadia would rather do the exact opposite of what they implied.

Her mind turns to Nilesy’s way of life. Why had he settled in a town like Oasis? There are far more pleasant settlements who’d be more than happy to welcome someone like him amongst them. 

Still, it’s Nilesy’s choice. Lomadia has no place in criticising him for making any choice that might be detrimental to him. The only thing she can do is watch out for him as best as she can, like Ravs is doing (or tries to).

Two hours later, Nilesy asks her to stop. “Where does that head off to?” He gestures to a sign with dried rakk droppings all over it. 

“That goes to Wam Bam Island,” Lomadia recalls. Her rakk parks itself on said sign, adding to the mess already on there. Nilesy regards the sign, tilting his head thoughtfully.

“Can we go?” He eventually asks in a neutral tone.

She’s never been there before. It’s one of the few places she’s avoided, it being a holiday destination and generally expected to be full of people. When she looks up, Nilesy has the most wistful look she’s ever seen on his face.

It does something to her heart-an image of Wam Bam Island (one from her guidebook) flashes in front of her eyes. 

The place is a beach destination. Oasis has been dried up for so long and of course Nilesy would be inclined to visit a place that reminds him of his once thriving town. How could she be so _daft_?

He catches her looking at him and flushes. “I mean, if it’s not too trouble! I know that we’re headed off to see Ravs and all, so we probably don’t have time. Forget I said anything!” He ducks down lower into the turret, leaving an embarrassed air behind. 

The top of his head is sticking out, given that the turret isn’t that roomy to hide in (no matter how short he is).

Lomadia smiles. She turns the technical onto the road headed for Wam Bam Island. Nilesy pops up out of the turret when the road is no longer smooth but lined with gravel. The bumping drives him to pop out of the turret, wondering what’s going on.

“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” She explains to one stunned Nilesy. He laughs, clapping in delight. The sound is music to her ears.

She parks the technical in the empty parking lot under the cool shade of a palm tree. Nilesy climbs down via the back. Her rakk goes drifting off over the jungle, probably to go find something to prey on. It probably knows it won’t be needed where they’re going.

They head up the stony path to the reception, a merry-looking shack that looks as though it’s been copied right out of her guidebook. Nobody is there. Nilesy rings the bell, biting his lip and is shooting curious glances this way and that, clearly wanting to get started.

A portly person with a black beanie stumps into the shack a minute later, squeezing himself behind the counter. “How long are you staying for?” They gruffly ask, their thick, blistered fingers hovering over the cash register. The faint odor of fish wafts over with the breeze.

“One day,” Lomadia answers. One day shouldn’t delay them too long, given that Ravs is inclined to worry if they’re overdue to arrive at Sanctuary Hole.

“It’ll be a hundred if you share a room and two hundred if you’re not,” The figure informs them.

“We’ll share!” Nilesy pipes up before she can request the other arrangement or pay, he’s shoving a stack of dollar bills across the counter towards the man. The figure carefully counts the bills before stashing them away in the register.

They hands Nilesy a polished metal key taken from the row of hooks behind them. “You’re in room eight. I’ll show you to it if you follow me.” They squeeze themself out from behind the counter, stomping down the rocky path beside the shack.

Nilesy and Lomadia follow. Nilesy can’t help but gasp in pure delight at the view of the beach and the cove they they come across. This appears to please the figure, who smiles as the three plod across the boardwalk towards a series of pastel colored houses set up on the hills.

The figure takes them up a set of wooden stairs. “Six, seven, eight, here, this one’s yours.” They stop by a picket fence that surrounds a small, cosy and bright yellow cottage. “I’m Monkfish, your host. Lunch is in seven hours if you feel like eating.” They hand Nilesy a paper map of the island withdrawn from their front pocket.

“Thank you,” Nilesy bids them, unfolding the map to peer at it. Lomadia takes the key from Nilesy to unlock the cottage.

“Enjoy your stay and ECHO me if you need me.” Monkfish gives a little odd bow, stepping back to leave. The gate’s latch is clicked shut by a helpful breeze.

Lomadia watches Monkfish cross the boardwalk towards a silver fishing rod parked on top of a rail, lifting it back up and settling on a rock.

The interior of the cottage contains two beds separated by a folded up bamboo partition. Carved wooden decorations adorn the walls. Wooden planks with plastic models of fish fill in the gaps between the carvings.

The chance to explore is cut short by Nilesy bouncing over to enthusiastically shove the map into her face. 

“There’s an aquarium! We can go bloodhound varkid treasure hunting, check out the water wheel, go for a swim at the beach, and eat a candlelit dinner by the ocean later if you want…” He starts to ramble, clearly having speed read the whole map and the list of activities to do while Lomadia had been poking around the cottage.

“Calm down, one thing at a time,” She reminds. Nilesy sucks in a much-needed breath, peering at her. He’s practically bursting with energy. “What would you like to do first?”

“Aquarium!” Nilesy blurts out. “However, we have a teensy problem.” He glances at her. She looks down, noting the disapproving look directed at her own clothing.

Lomadia blinks at the sudden concern in his eyes, not getting it. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not quite dressed for the beach,” Nilesy pointedly observes.

“True.” She smiles, only to lean down and smoothly pull both of her boots off, socks included, so that she’s in her bare feet, rolling her pants and shirt sleeves up so that they won't get wet. The dirt is cool under her bare feet. “Done.”

Nilesy just laughs at her ingenuity, offering a skinny arm to her. She takes it and lets him lead the way. Monkfish nods at them as they pass by.

The next five or so hours are spent accompanying him as he indulges in all manner of tourist activities on the brochure, no matter how ridiculous.

It’s easy to forget that Nilesy has never been on a holiday of his own; it shows in the way he wholeheartedly approaches attractions. When Lomadia holds back to let him enjoy it himself (making the mistake of assuming that he won’t want her beside him), he rushes back to pull her along with him.

“You’re here with me and you have to join in,” He insists as though it’s a simple manner of life or death, without the possibility of dying ever coming up once. 

Well, except for the run-in with the rather large craboid trying to break into the underwater aquarium. The shield keeping them safe had managed to hold it off. 

Nilesy had pulled faces at it until Lomadia had dragged him away before they found out that the shield had a limit to how many blows it could take from the creature’s determined pincers trying to crush them.

Even if Lomadia’s never been on a holiday before either, this one would surely fit the bill, no? If a certain bandit knew, he’d probably also agree and grinning, would have dragged her along so they can try their hands at fishing.

Lomadia focuses on casting the rod with the result of her line landing further out than Nilesy’s one. Even Monkfish throws her an impressed look. She pretends that it’d been deliberate.

“Sneaky bastards, eating my bait,” mutters Nilesy under his breath. He reels in his empty line to tack more wriggling bait on and try again, though not without cringing from the liveliness of the critters that are doomed to be speared on a hook.

Never mind how Lomadia tangles hers and Nilesy’s lines with absolutely no clue how it’d happened. It takes fifteen minutes to separate the fishing lines with Monkfish’s help. They laugh, the sound coming from deep within them, shaking their belly.

“You’re not the first two tourists to get stuck. I once had a guy wearing these damned glasses try fishing. He didn’t catch anything. As it turns out, he was fishing with a dollar bill the whole time,” They recalls, grinning. “Tipped me with the bill after.” They knowingly pat the chest pocket of their jacket. 

After watching them fail to catch anything for another hour, Monkfish eventually leaves to go prepare their lunch, lugging a net containing several fish (all feebly wriggling).

Lunch takes place at the top of the cliff overlooking the cove, besides the water wheel. The sound of wood creaking, coupled with water falling to meet the beach underneath them is intimidating at first. It soon fades into the background after five minutes.

Nilesy lets his bare feet (plastered all over with sand grains up to his knees) kick out from underneath his deck chair. Not wanting to risk splinters or pebbles jabbing into the undersides of his feet, he’d deigned to borrow sandals from the rental shed. His usual footwear are spared a sandy fate with that decision.

Lomadia has since opted to remain barefoot. Her own soles have become tougher over the years, hardening to become leathery and impenetrable to all but the sharpest of ground. It’d take more than sand and pebbles to puncture any part of her browned feet. 

The breeze plays with her and Nilesy’s hair, bringing with it salty air that she knows will be a part of her for a few more days. Nilesy spends the whole time staring out over the cove, hands resting on top of the table. One of his shirt buttons is coming undone. 

Patches of sand cling to him, from when he’d built a sandcastle on the beach, getting knocked over by a wave as he bent over to scoop up more foundation. He is smiling, content and the happiest she’s ever seen him.

If she could stop time and preserve this moment for eternity, this would be it. Lomadia snaps the first and only picture she’s ever taken on Pandora. There’s probably no place that can print it out for her. If she ever finds one? The picture will find its way to Nilesy. 

For now, she tucks it into the place where she keeps all the dear, precious memories: her heart.

Monkfish backs out of the kitchen bearing two large, chipped white plates laden with what looked like the chopped up remains of cooked fish. That is, if fish happened to be spiny-covered, purple fish-shaped creatures sporting several rows of sharp teeth that gave it a fierce underbite.

“Caught these fish myself. Here, you just eat the flesh, the rest will just give you a stomachache,” They helpfully say, watching Nilesy prod a spine with his fork, clearly unsure how to start eating.

Leaning over, Monkfish expertly cuts open the fish along several gashes along its side. The gesture exposes slices of white, tender flesh saturated with herbs, butter and what smelled like garlic. A tiny bowl of creamy sauce accompanies the fish. 

Nilesy goes from squinting and prodding the fish to hungrily staring at it. “This looks amazing,” He says in a hushed, awed tone.

Monkfish simply motions to a dab of freshly cut citrus fruit before excusing himself. “I recommend it with the fruit and sauce,” is all they say.

Mouths watering at the smell that continues to escape the cooked fish, Nilesy and Lomadia eagerly dig in. In the distance atop a seaside cliff, Lomadia spies her rakk easily delegging a struggling varkid, relishing its own meal as well.

Fish is one of those items considered a prime luxury. Pandora’s geography tended to grow dryer the farther one traveled inland, with the exception of those who’d chosen to settle by the scant rivers winding their way through the landscape. 

Even then, those rivers tended to wax and wane with the seasons, swelling during the months of rain and shrivelling up when temperatures soared to the point of cracking the earth.

Lomadia finishes her fish off first (seeing as Nilesy is having too much fun finding and digging out as much of the fish’s edible bits). She spends the time dissecting the specimen left over. 

Pandora’s ocean life is a massive, ongoing mystery. Her travels never come in range of the coasts. That’s something she should probably rectify one of these days.

The fish is mostly spine and scales with not much flesh. It’s not like it matters much, because Monkfish is bringing out a second course: steaming potato chips and delicate fried rings that turned out to be thresher tentacles.

Lomadia’s eaten threshers before. Threshers aren’t considered a delicacy save in certain regions of Pandora. It just proves that people can and will eat anything remotely edible. On top of being notoriously territorial and living in groups, the creatures are difficult to get out of the ground once they're dead.

Their insides aren’t that filling, possessing a texture akin to that of old rubber plus the taste of dirt no matter hard or what people have tried to get rid of it. On the other hand, their chopped off tentacles, once cured, dried or fried up with several combinations of flavor packs are quite nice.

“This should be offered in more places,” Lomadia muses, unable to stop herself from enjoying the look of utter disgust on Nilesy’s face when she reaches for another crispy ring. “Want another one?” 

The rings are soft, not at all chewy or too oily, with the perfect amount of crunch from the batter. The chips are just as delicious, steaming lightly.

“I think I’ll stick with the chips, thanks,” Nilesy decides. “Actually, trade?” His plate is pushed over so she can tip her chips onto it and pluck it clean of rings. He dips a chip into the remains of the sauce from the first dish, popping it into his mouth and chewing.

“This is nice,” Lomadia says, letting her gaze drift over the cove. She doesn’t blame Nilesy for growing too occupied with the view.

White, billowing clouds spread themselves across the blue sky. Waves lazily lap at the white sand down below and under the crooked pier. Craboids burrow deeper into the sand, the water occasionally upsetting one to drag it out to sea where a predator awaits a free meal. Palm trees brush the sky.

“Yeah,” Nilesy agrees, following her gaze. Monkfish’s heavy footsteps alert the two of them to incoming dessert. Nilesy exclaims, “Is that what I think it is?”

Even Lomadia is hard-pressed to stop the smile appearing on her face at the sight of ice cream. Monkfish just smiles under their beard, setting the small plastic, fish patterned bowls onto their table. Two metal spoons follow. Fish swim about on the patterned handles.

“Eat up before it melts,” They gruffly say. As with all the other times, they lumber off to leave them to enjoy their meal in relative peace.

Real ice cream. How long has it been since…? There’s no way to answer that without really searching her memory. She would rather leave the question unanswered to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Lomadia dutifully picks up her spoon, sticking it into the dessert to bring away a white spoonful. Sliced bits of drakefruit cascade down its sides as she excavates the ice cream, mouthful by mouthful. The ice cream is a rather mundane flavor, sweetened by the pink flesh of the fruit. Still, the combined taste sends her mood flying to join the clouds in the sky. 

Judging by Nilesy’s delighted grin, she can say the same for him. He’s already munching on the wafer bit sticking out of the top without finishing the rest first. There’s no real pattern to how he eats the ice cream, his spoon plunging in and out at random.

Continuing to smile at the differences in how they choose to eat it, Lomadia starts from the top and painstakingly works her way down, leaving the fruit and wafer for last, determined to drag out the experience for as long as she can.

All good things must come to an end. Thus, Nilesy and Lomadia stack their empty bowls with the spoons inside to lean back in their chairs, full at last. Not a single bit of ice cream remains.

“We should tip Monkfish for the dessert,” Nilesy says, breaking the brief silence. He smothers a burp with both hands, sinking lower in his chair.

“We should,” Lomadia simply agrees, also feeling full. She lets him calculate the right amount and adds some of her cash to it along with his own. That much food is making her drowsy, a rare feat. Rations don’t achieve the same effect as a meal with several courses.

This is awfully like taking a hot bath on a rainy day, regardless of whether or not she deserves it. 

One look at Nilesy’s content features (his eyes have slid shut to bask in the sun) tells her that Nilesy deserves all that and so much more.

\--

They dance by the ocean with the moon as their witness. 

Lomadia knows no fancy moves to boast of. Really, dancing, and only because Nilesy had seized her hands after dinner, and with surprising strength, hauled her over to the wooden beached platform serving as the dance floor.

Tipsy from the wine, Nilesy proceeds to demonstrate what his ‘sick moves’ consisted of: a hodgepodge of styles that he takes her through, with an amateur’s burning enthusiasm and a ‘give no fucks’ attitude for showing them all off.

Still, he never steps on her toes once, possessing a startling amount of grace in the way he executes sections of choreography that his memory serves up to him, changing styles with alarming speed.

Lomadia’s congratulating herself on having made a smart choice in letting him lead. Steer’s probably a better word, given how deftly he handles her hands to cover up how bad she is at the whole dancing thing.

It’s when he breaks out into a slow motion chicken dance (entirely straight-faced the whole time, treating the situation as a serious dance competition where the judges are in black tie or whatever it is people wore to ballroom dances), that Lomadia laughs to the point of shedding tears.

That makes Nilesy break the facade, forgetting about dancing to crack up as well. They double over, leaning on one another so they don’t topple over (or into the ocean, for that matter, however shallow it is in these parts).

Somewhere, Monkfish is also grinning broadly as he pipes in record after record through the tinny sound system, watching these two tire themselves out. Their raucous laughter that’s drifts up through the open window of the DJ booth, akin to the sound of waves. It’s music to their ears.

Wiping her tears away, Lomadia is glad she decided to take Nilesy to this place.

\--

Monkfish bids them a goodbye devoid of gruffness. They gift a discount coupon for the next time the two decide to visit. Nilesy had somehow managed to become friends with them during their early evening dinner, prior to the wild dancing. It must be something to do with running places for years all by themselves that brought them together, she thinks. 

The coupon might not be much but she and Nilesy get that it’s all that they can offer, thanking them profusely for being such a gracious and kind host.

Nilesy doesn’t stop waving until they’ve reached the sign where she couldn’t work out whether to take the risk of a brief holiday or not. 

From here on out, the road has several stops along it that she’s used before. None of them will ever be as hospitable as Monkfish’s beachside holiday destination but they suffice as a temporary places to hold off whatever horrors the night thinks of bringing on over.

Much to her amusement, Nilesy had also come along on this road trip armed with a tent of his own, even if hers is big enough for the two of them to fit in side by side. Provided of course, neither of them kicked or rolled into one another at any point in the night.

It’s not that he won’t refuse to sleep with her in the same tent; they’d shared a room back at Wam Bam Island without a fuss. Granted, said room had a woven partition that he’d pulled into place after bidding her a fond ‘good night’.

Thus, it stands to reason that Lomadia doesn’t quite get why he wants to sleep separately now.

“Is it because I snore?” She bluntly asks while hammering a peg into the hard ground with her mallet.

Nilesy pauses in the middle of stringing up the khaki colored canvas, fingers absently toying with the coarse braided rope. “You don’t snore,” He finally says, with evident reluctance. 

Snoring in the the wilderness is just an invitation to get dragged off into the dark. It’s pretty clear that she’s joking. 

For Nilesy to interpret that literally gives her pause. Lomadia glances over her shoulder. Whether deliberately or not, he sidles out of her view altogether behind his own tent. One of the loose flaps is adorned with a crudely drawn cat in black marker.

Nilesy snatches the tent flap. “Good night!” He bids, crawling into the tent on his hands and knees. The last she sees of him is the back of his shirt rapidly vanishing between the falling canvas folds, the zip ascending to seal him in.

Her rakk croons from a nearby water tower falling apart at the top, metal peeling off in flakes where the rust has won. Deciding not to think about it too much, Lomadia crawls into her own tent, calmly pulling the zip all the way to the top.

Stretching out in her sleeping bag as much as the puffy sides permit, Lomadia drifts off to the leisurely, somewhat worrisome creaking of the water tower from her rakk and the wind’s combined efforts to topple it.

Waking halfway in the night to sip from her canteen, Lomadia becomes aware of a quiet hiccuping.

Now, she’s also woken up to having her tent investigated by all manner of creatures before. Having her rakk roosting nearby is enough to deter most of them from coming anywhere near her to begin with. If any of them are thinking of tearing apart the tent, she’s got a gun ready to open fire on them.

The radar in her HUD comes up clean, save for two dots that she knows are her rakk (by its trademark bat shape) and Nilesy. Her hearing traces the source of the noise to his tent.

Lomadia sleepily tugs on her socks, lacing up her boots by the light of her ECHO device. The noise softens, fading. Now concerned, she fumbles for the zip, succeeding in pulling down it to emerge into the dark. The cold air nips at her skin, face and hands, Elpis’ light proving useless to guide her.

Knowing exact where Nilesy’s tent is without having to use a light, Lomadia stretches both hands out to find the zip, crouching down in front of it first. Her hands hover to pull the bit of metal down to enter.

“Nilesy?” She sleepily calls out. He might not want her to come in.

The hiccuping dies, only to be replaced by a frightened, tense silence. It’s broken by Nilesy’s high-pitched voice. “I'm fine!” Shuffling sounds inside the tent as though he’s trying to physically cover his distress, despite the canvas separating them.

That immediately strikes her as a terrible, obvious lie. Social custom dictates that she goes back to bed and in the morning and neither of them will speak of it ever again. Since social customs are lost on her, Lomadia shuffles closer to the tent flap.

“Nilesy,” She begins, patiently and now wide awake. “I know you’re not fine.” If he’s worried he’s annoying her by trying to play it cool, he’s got another thing coming. A dark shape moves towards her.

A moment later, the tent flap parts once the zip’s plummeted. The pale yellow glow of the lamp inside peeks out. He’s letting her in. Lomadia steps inside and deftly does the zip up as to not let any unwanted guests (like the wind) in with her. 

He’s returned to sitting on his sleeping bag, his bare knees pulled up to his chest. His black-framed glasses are nowhere to be seen. Lomadia carefully settles next to him on the sleeping bag, knees tucked up under her.

Nilesy quickly glances at her through his messy black curtain of hair before it darts down to stare at a curly piece of white thread sticking out of the sleeping bag. His fingers reach down to toy with it.

“Hi,” He eventually mumbles once it’s clear that she’s not going to leave. “Sorry for waking you up.” The way he sounds apologetic invokes the desire to put an arm around him. Her hands to stay in her lap.

“It’s fine, I was awake anyway,” Lomadia responds with a dismissive shake of her head. Her braids almost smack into the side of the tent. Technically, she had been awake, so it’s not lying. “Bad dream?” She guesses, peering at Nilesy.

He answers her in the form of a jerky nod that’d seemed on the verge of a denying shake. She does not press him as to what the dream’s about.

What she does is this: offer to make some hot chocolate. 

“ _What_?” Nilesy doesn’t mean to flatly ask but he’d expected some sort of brow beating for answers as to why he’s been caught crying in the middle of the night.

“Hot chocolate, Nilesy, hot chocolate,” Lomadia repeats, clicking her tongue for good measure. She would have tutted if it hadn’t made her sound so disapproving; the last thing she wants to do is to drive a bigger wedge between Nilesy and her.

Out of her inventory, she produces out a dented kettle, a miniature block of a hot plate powered by a solar panel (fully charged, excellent), a bent spoon and a mug with birds flying off the sides.

Rummaging through the deeper layers of her inventory, Lomadia rescues a faded square tin of hot chocolate flavor packs. Two squishy marshmallows, still sealed in their foil pack, follow. The expiry dates pronounces the lot safe to consume.

Flummoxed, Nilesy watches her take all of that out to lay it on the tent’s floor. It’s been years since Lomadia’s ever made it for anyone else aside from herself. The first person she’d ever made it for has probably forgotten her by now.

Letting that thought pass, Lomadia empties a brand new bottle of water into the kettle. It’s left to boil on the hot plate. Lomadia extracts two flavor packs out of the once brightly colored tin. Nilesy picks it up to scrutinise it, having to squint with his lack of glasses.

“Maliwan?” He reads, sounding a touch confused. Most people tend to forget that elemental guns aren’t the only thing that said corporation produces.

“They make good hot chocolate,” Lomadia explains. The best hot chocolate, if she had to be more precise.

Tediore’s possesses a taste akin to someone who has no clue as to what constitutes hot chocolate and shoved coffee grounds into the packs instead. Everything else from the other corporations is passable; Hyperion’s is second best to that of Maliwan. The only difference between the two is that Maliwan’s is cheaper by a thin margin.

Nilesy places his own empty mug by the sleeping bag, drawing closer to watch the kettle bring itself to a boil. Outside, the world rolls over and mumbles in its sleep, paying the two of them no heed.

The kettle’s indicator flashes red, letting her pour precisely two steaming cups of hot water into the mugs at hand. She turns off the hot plate and leave the empty kettle to cool.

Handing Nilesy a flavor pack so he can open it, Lomadia tips her own into the boiling water, following it up with quick, precise stirs. Nilesy produces his own spoon once he’s torn his packet open.

The clear bubbling water becomes a muddy-brown that pales as the pack dissolves. Nilesy’s mimicking her. He’s shed the skittishness that’d been present ever since she’d hunched down to join him in his tent, concentrating on the motion.

One of the marshmallows is nudged towards him. He hesitates to take it. “Can I have another?” He sheepishly mumbles. Only because their heads are so close (due to how small the tent is) does she hear him.

Another marshmallow pack is handed to him with an obliging smile. He drops both marshmallows into his hot chocolate, watching them melt into fine white trails that his stirring mixes with the hot chocolate.

The tent’s chilly air is filled with the smell of it. Nilesy closes his eyes, breathing it in, much like the ocean’s salty air. It fills in the hole his crying had bored into him. Their spoons set aside, Lomadia and Nilesy lift up their mugs.

He jokingly toasts (even if it seems forced on his part, to try to appear happy, let alone calm, for her sake). She does too (because she’s been down that road before). Grinning, they both take the first sip of hot chocolate. It’s sweet with a hint of condensed milk mingled with the undercurrent of cocoa, the sugar of the melted marshmallow complementing the darkness of it.

It soothes whatever’s disturbed Nilesy, tacking it down underneath reassuring murmurs of ‘you’re okay’. And that, is precisely why Lomadia makes hot chocolate, on nights where it’s just her with no other human being around for miles and the harrowing edge of loneliness sinks in too deep.

The hot chocolate reminds her that a little self care can go a long way into making the world more bearable. It makes it bearable enough for her to shrug, to leave the blade in so that first thing in the morning, she can wrench it out. It’s so that she’ll be able to carry on walking (or living, it’s the same thing when it comes boiling down to the essence of the action; so long as she never loses the will to put one foot in front of the other, she’ll be okay).

Emboldened by the drink, Nilesy puts his empty mug down, heaving a weary sigh. In a bland tone, he starts to talk of the painful things that lurk in his subconscious plaguing him at night when he closes his eyes.

Lomadia listens, letting Nilesy name his demons.

\--

Habit dictates that she wakes at dawn and so does Nilesy. It begins when a groggy Nilesy accidentally throws a hand into her face when yawning, trying to ease the crick in his back from when he’d almost caterpillared out of his sleeping and onto the ground.

Lomadia reacts to the literal slap in the face with an indignant splutter that snaps her out of her sleep, recoiling from the wayward hand. Nilesy hastily retracts his hand with the motion of suffering a burn.

“I am so sorry,” He says, clearly agonised, sitting up to squint at her.

“A ‘good morning’ would have been fine,” She grumpily responds, also sitting up. Wrinkling her nose (it hadn’t been a hard smack but it still hurts), Lomadia starts to redo her braids, hair coming apart in a loose blue and blonde mess.

Nilesy stares at her, swallowing guiltily. It’s not until she stares back that he stretches his hands out behind him to pick up his glasses. 

They’re not where he left them, folded up by the dull lamp by his sleeping bag.

“Glasses, glasses, where have you gone?” He mutters, brow furrowing with annoyance. A yawn stops his search for a moment.

Being this short-sighted means he has to perpetually squint at the inside of the tent. Everything presents itself with a fuzzy outline.

“What’s wrong?” Inside a tent, stretching her hands above her head doesn’t quite have the same effect as in an open space. She has to quickly fold her arms down to avoid hitting the top of the tent.

“I can’t find my glasses!” Nilesy despairs. Lomadia has to turn away under the pretense of searching because the image of Nilesy having just woken up will always be something to remember.

That’s probably normal behaviour amongst friends, because she’s never seen Nilesy this unkempt.

His hair is not straight, all crooked and tangled by way of a good night’s sleep.  
Lomadia had discovered that he’d been something of a tosser and turner, changing sides exactly on the hour. Bored, she’d timed the first three tosses, keeping watch until she’d felt it prudent to try to sleep as well.

Also, his rumpled shirt has ridden up to his stomach, revealing an immensely flat albeit surprisingly lightly fuzzy chest. The edge of his underwear (an adventurous light blue, featuring cat print printed on what she guesses is silk boxers) is greeting her over his equally crumpled shorts (askew on his hips).

His cold feet nudge her in the arm, asking her to move out of the way. She barely holds back a shriek, swatting him. He sleepily grins.

Rolling her eyes, Lomadia shifts, just in case the glasses might have ended up in her sleeping bag. Nilesy leans over to pat her side down for it, once she’s shuffled to the entrance of the tent. He frisks the sleeping bag with a determined air.

“Gotcha!” is his triumphant shout. His hand holds up his miraculously intact glasses. Slipping them on, he blinks at her through the lens. “I don’t know how they ended up underneath you.” The observation is accompanied by a narrowing of eyes.

Yes, that’s indeed a mystery. Lomadia just shrugs, turning to exit once he’s thrown over her rolled up sleeping bag, following suit.

A blanket of thin fog has settled over the area. Both Lomadia and Nilesy camp by the technical once their tents have been dismantled, taking turns to cook breakfast on the hot plate.

Breakfasts consists of tins of warmed spaghetti spread out on several slices of toast. While Nilesy finishes off his toast with dainty bites, Lomadia lets out a shrill cry to summon her rakk.

It flaps over to her, the remains of its meal (streaks of maroon) plastered around its jaws. She gives it a pat on the head for behaving and having not wandered off to cause mischief (much).

The rakk crawls over to Nilesy, spiked tail and enormous wings dragging along the ground, the tail coming upwards to dangerously swing this way and that. 

He almosts drops the last bit of toast in his hand from how fast he backpedals away from it. Lomadia’s tempted to laugh; she just observes from the sidelines. Knowing her rakk, it’s probably just curious about what he’s eating and wants to investigate by sniffing at it.

Nilesy probably thinks it’s about to attack him.

It traps him by the technical, Nilesy flattening himself against the side of the vehicle. The rakk dips its head to (as she’d predicted) sniff at the morsel in his hand. Connecting its curiosity to what’s being held, he extends his shaking hand.

Her rakk impatiently nabs the morsel right out of his palm, swallowing it in one gulp, sending spaghetti sauce and bits of crumbs flying everywhere. Nilesy’s resulting expression of mild disgust is worth seeing him get bullied out of his breakfast. A nervous ‘why aren't you helping me’ glance is lobbed in her direction.

Deciding it quite likes the taste, the rakk latches onto his sauce covered hand in search of more. Nilesy’s eyes widen, a scream about to escape him. Lomadia is already marching over to pry her rakk off before it can bite down. Well, she hadn’t foreseen that.

“Ow,” Nilesy deadpans, clearly distressed about it by the way his gaze never leaves the rakk. He starts to giggle as it licks his hand. “Mister Owl, your tongue tickles!”

“That’s not the tongue you’re feeling,” Lomadia informs him, smacking her rakk lightly in the head. “Stop,” She sharply says to it. Not daring to disobey based on her tone, it spits out Nilesy’s hand, globs of drool dripping off it. It drops its head, aware of its misdeed.

A cursory inspection of Nilesy’s hand reveals that the bite has left marks. In her opinion, it’s not as bad as the ones she’d initially received from the creature back when she’d first started to care for it. Or the one he’d been given when first meeting it.

“Well, it didn’t rip my hand off,” He brightly concludes, wiping the drool on a wipe. Still, he deadeyes her rakk. It hunches down lower, making apologetic noises that appear to be coming from a malfunctioning toaster.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise it’d do that,” She mumbles, embarrassed.

“Well, there’s no lasting harm done!” In fact, Nilesy appears to be weirdly pleased that it’s going to leave another reminder behind. 

Lomadia won’t burst his bubble in that it won’t scar, shaking her head. What is it with Nilesy trying to show off to Ravs every single scar he gets on these trips?

Still feeling troubled, Lomadia goes through the trouble of checking her inventory for medical supplies. She has one bandaid on her. It’ll have to do. He graciously accepts the bandaid, though refuses to let her apply it for him.

“I’m a big boy now,” He primly says.

That’s enough time they’ve wasted here. They still have a lot of ground to cover if they want to reach Sanctuary Hole before Ravs starts to worry about them becoming lost or encountering trouble on the way.

\--

There’s a harrowing moment where upon entering the Highlands, threshers swarm the technical as they cut across a shallow, dingy pond to reach the second last leg of their journey.

With Lomadia’s quick steering and Nilesy in the turret, they manage to bypass all the tentacles trying to smack them onto ground that hides quicksand, judging by the way the way the grainy surface shimmers and ripples.

In the middle of all that, her rakk had snapped up a quick meal in the form of a tadpole specimen (bitten clean in half). Bits and pieces of it rain down behind them. The rakk doesn’t dare dive down to assist any more than that, lest it get caught by the wormhole threshers and dragged under the suffocating sand.

The giant doors to the Hyperion outpost have long since been blasted apart, the wreckage strewn all over the plains by it. Nature’s begun to overtake it, based from the way the pieces sink into the sand, rusting and paling, reminding them of half-sunken ships moored on the Oasis drought ridden ocean floor.

The entrance to the Fridge consists of a dark tunnel leading into the mountain. Water trickles down from an unseen passage to run into an excuse of a river nearby, restlessly sliding over rocks. Old stalker nests held nothing but stale droppings, a looted weapons chest and the crust-like remnants of former nests destroyed by scavengers hoping for a morsel.

“Beyond the mountain lies Three Horns,” Lomadia pants as she climbs the steep hill towards the tunnel. The bridge suspended over a bubbling river sways underneath her with every step.

Nilesy scurries after her, throwing worried glances back at the old nests, just in case there happens to be any stalkers who still hung around in the area.

They’ve despawned the technical back near the abandoned Hyperion outpost. The technical won’t be much use where they’re headed, in such a cramped, rocky space. The dark presses itself on them in a way reminiscent of hiding under a thick blanket, sans the eventual lack of air.

Frigid air fills their lungs, crisp and light, in contrast to the muggy, warm mountain air. The footsteps echo, bouncing off the narrow walls. Lomadia and Nilesy continue along the widening tunnel, ending up at the bottom of a metal shaft. Snow billows in from the top of the shaft, filling it with a flurry of flakes that spiral down upon them. Nilesy puts out his hand to catch several.

The clear flakes melts in the palm of his hand, spreading a tingly cold out to his fingers. Already, the sharp drop in temperature’s lent the barest shiver to his vulnerable frame. He’s never been one for cold weather. Lomadia is better dressed than he is, clad in her dark blue insulated shirt, pants and boots.

In comparison, he’s dressed for the beach, not mountain climbing or any form of spelunking. His inadequate clothing has drawn her attention in the form of a mild ‘I told you so’ look.

Nilesy’s teeth are chattering already, arms rubbing his shoulders, his form hunching over to try to preserve heat. How cold is it? His HUD cheerfully reports a number that has him cursing, puffs of white billowing from his mouth and nose with every breath.

“Put on something warmer,” Lomadia pointedly suggests, examining the shaft with a critical eye. 

The sides and slope are layered in a metal that they both instantly know is Dahl’s handiwork. If they climb it, they’’ll just fall back down, courtesy of how slippery it is from the snow slicking it.

Like the other corporations who’d tried to civilise Pandora and eventually given up (or driven off), Dahl’s business has long since concluded. Relics of their stay litter the planet; this must be one of the few, prominent ones that’s still standing the test of time and wear.

“Fine,” Nilesy concedes, beginning to feel no sensation in his nose and cheeks. He reaches into his inventory, entering the tab named ‘clothes’. His only scarf is pried out of storage.

With growing incredulity, Lomadia watches as the end of a knitted scarf is yanked out of his digistruct module. Defying her expectations that one tug will cause the rest of the scarf to follow, her eyes widen as Nilesy continues to extract a metre, no, two, no, three, four metres of scarf out.

At the look on her face, Nilesy smiles at her. “I made it myself!” 

Whatever it is, Lomadia has to stifle the urge to throw it into a flaming barrel, right away. Her eyes hurt to look at the haphazard tangle of the brightest red, orange, yellow blending together, blurring at the seams and okay, she’ll scar her own vision if she has to look at the fucking thing any longer.

The whole scarf is meticulously wound around his neck, the pile resembling a garish patterned reptile comfortably curled around his shoulders. One loose and fraying end drapes down his back.

A knitted beetroot colored wooden hat (with cat ears) is tugged on over his head. Green mittens, the color of freshly cut grass that also happen to be two sizes too large are jammed onto both hands.

“Done!” He announces with an air of achievement. The shiver’s already gone from him.

There’s a brief pause as Lomadia struggles to find a suitable comment to say without offending him. “Nilesy, you can’t go into the Fridge dressed like that,” Lomadia tactfully observes with an appraising look up and down his form. 

From here, he looks like a stuffed toy with too many ill-fitting and bulky accessories. The point falls on deaf ears.

Nilesy strides forward to examine the place they’re in, the scarf swinging in the air behind him. He peers over the edge of the shaft ahead of them. No end is in sight. He cranes his head back to pick out the only way they can go: up.

“What goes up must come down,” He mutters, squinting up at the exit that’s far beyond their reach.

“There must be a switch here,” Lomadia concludes. Her eyes have adjusted to the gloom to pick out objects scattered here and there. There has to be a platform or a lift that exists. If not, they’ll have to back out of the tunnel and climb around the mountains, seeing as her rakk refuses to use Fast Travel.

Discarded boxes of ammo tossed to one side and the dull outlines of vending machines that have lost their light slump forlornly against the wall are the only sights worth noting behind them. Her inventory is almost filled to maximum capacity with everything she could possibly need.

She spots the lever sticking out of the ground a metre away from Nilesy. “Switch, there!” Nilesy feels his way across to it, his hands finding it at her direction.

“Ugh, it’s stuck,” He complains, tugging uselessly on it. It refuses to budge even as he takes up a stance in front of it and rests his whole weight against it.

“Let me try.” Lomadia rubs both of her hands together. Grunting, she wrenches the lever back towards her as Nilesy pushes it, grunting from the effort. 

A series of grinding sounds echo down the shaft towards them. Gears clank and chains clinking begin to fill the space. The roof of the shaft is blotted out by a vast black shape descending.

Letting go of the lever to see what’s coming down, the two of them step back. The lift comes to rest at the bottom of the shaft over the bottomless pit. Nilesy and Lomadia glance at each other. She bravely steps on. 

Only when nothing happens, does she extend a helping hand to Nilesy. He takes it, letting her guide him onto the platform. He’s still holding onto her hand once they’re both on it.

An identical switch (also refusing to budge at first, giving way only when the two of them join forces shove it back) causes the lift to return up the shaft. The journey up is filled with a tense kind of silence, the kind where one has no idea what awaits them on the other end. 

Neither of them dare to talk, listening to the random rising and falling of the wind as it sweeps more snow into the shaft from above. The middling light (and the clock in their HUD) informs them that the sun is beginning to slip from the darkening sky.

The lift clunks to a gentle stop with the same docility from before, allowing them to exit. The open double doors are letting in even more of the chilled air. 

The weather protection in her shield settings form a buffer between it and her body. A sideways glance confirms that Nilesy’s got his own shield on, clipped to his shorts. Otherwise, frostbite would have settled with alarming speed, making itself right at home.

Where their breaths had come in puffs, exhaling invokes a mist that momentarily precipitates before dissolving under the force of the wind.

Up here, the wind is even fiercer, snapping Nilesy’s scarf up and causing Lomadia’s braids to flip over her shoulders. If it rises in intensity, they’d need to wait for it to calm before pressing on. In the Fridge, waiting seems to be one of those smart ideas forgotten in one’s haste to leave the place.

Smooth, shapely mounds of pristine snow cover abandoned construction lattices left to rot and rust on either side of the doors. Husks of shipping containers with the doors long pried off by scavengers form a poor barrier against the wind and snow. A sleek metal walkway blanketed by a sloping snow bank lies ahead of them. 

A closed set of metal doors quietly sits to their right. Scratches, blood, black marks and bullet holes mar almost every centimetre of it. Nilesy and Lomadia avert their wary gazes upon spotting no visible lever or wheel that’ll open them. They have no desire to find out if the doors are trapping whatever is being kept inside or if they, the trespassers, are deliberately being barred entry.

To their left, a frozen, glazed river of blue winds around a black, white-streaked piece of mountain. Yellow, rocky clusters of crystal spikes jut out from the ground by it. Skittering, disturbed sounds of creatures ring out in the space above their heads, as well as wings and tails.

The entire place gives off an depressing air of neglect and abandonment from humans having once tried to live here but having given up in the end for whatever reason.

The HUD map directs them to the top of the snow bank. Not daring to step off the walkway onto the ice to find out if it’s as thick as it looks, Nilesy and Lomadia begin to walk. From below, her rakk can hardly be seen, darting in and out of the shadows of the foreboding peaks above them.

It lets out a shriek every now and then as to confirm their position from the way Lomadia answers it. Her voices bounces off the rocky walls to reach it. Distant cries answer Lomadia, none of them as loud as her rakk’s authoritative one. It silences the others.

In theory, the walk should have taken twenty minutes. It takes them twice as long, owing to the snow, slope and the wind’s valiants attempts to flatten them into the ground. A sinkhole hidden by a patch of innocent looking snow almost swallows Nilesy, if Lomadia hadn’t grabbed onto his scarf and hauled him back to safety in time.

The darkness encompasses them to the point of no longer being sure of which way they’re headed. While the HUD points them forward, they can’t see their surroundings as well. 

They’re currently standing on another walkway that stretches from one end of a tiny, glazed lake to the other side. Dead shells of cars and buses piled on the walkway form ineffective shelter from the weather and the night.

Dead Dahl buildings built into the mountain pen them in, looming like bouncers leering at a forming queue in front of an exclusive nightclub. Lomadia and Nilesy wisely stay away, not knowing what lurks amongst the ruins, given that the ruins have been empty and uninhabited (by humans, that is) for so long.

“We might as well camp again,” Lomadia admits, her nerves prickling from the idea of camping in the Fridge. Pressing on would be risky, in this dark and with the current weather conditions.

They clear out an empty corner. Fortunately, it offers them sufficient cover from the wind that’s beginning to kick up, beginning to howl as it rushes through the peaks. Nilesy poses no argument, simply following her as closely as possible without stepping on her heels.

Pitching the lone tent on snow that comes up to their knees is cumbersome, to say the least. The stout pegs keep falling over, refusing to stay put. With more swings of the mallet than expected, the pegs are soon stuck fast in the bedrock-like ground underneath the snow.

Lomadia takes all of the watches after a lengthy, whispered argument with Nilesy on the condition that he’ll drive tomorrow. There’s no point in starting a fire, the wind will stealthily snuff it out no matter how much of a wall they encase it in. What light exists with the presence of the moon is lost amongst the peak’s cavernous folds.

It feels as though she’s looking up from the bottom of an abyss, lost in a different world where the light is replaced by dark. As nocturnal as Lomadia is, she’d prefer to have even the tiniest flicker of light, rather than none at all.

As the night goes on, the darkness imperceptibly shifts around her, becoming its own living, breathing entity, neither an ally nor foe. She suspects that there are eyes on the camp. That’s a gut feeling she’s learned to hone and trust. It’s usually not wrong.

Only the shotgun in her hands is likely keeping them (or whatever it is) at bay. It’s loaded and she has no shortage of ammo on her. As the night wears on, she’s determined to remain vigilant. She’s the only thing standing between the dark and a sleeping Nilesy.

A lifetime has passed by the time Nilesy crawls out of the tent. They’re in the second phase of night where the darkness begins to give way to the dawn that’ll soon fill up the cavern.

With his help, Lomadia swiftly dismantles the tent, packing it up into his inventory. It’s now that the feeling of being watched slides home. There’s more than one pair of eyes upon them. Lomadia wheels around, her shotgun raised, eyes sweeping across their campsite.

Behind her, Nilesy stills, picking up her silent alarm. Far too focused on spotting any incoming danger, he overlooks the bony, clawed hand sliding out of the gap in the rocks by his feet.

He shrieks as its icy grip closes around his ankle, forcibly dragging him back. He crashes onto his front, flailing as snow flies into his face, pebbles cutting into the undersides of his arms.

“Nilesy!” Lomadia whirls around.

A single shot from her shotgun separates the hand from a grey clothed arm. The freed hand (groping fingers frozen in place) lands in the snow a metre away, spewing blood that seeps into the snow, pink on white. Not even the wind can steal the smell.

The injured Rat screams, cracked lips peeling back to snarl at her, vanishing back into their hiding hole. Lomadia tosses a grenade into the space after it, dragging a shocked Nilesy by his scarf away. Blue electricity snags empty air.

A weight collides against her side, almost dislodging the shotgun from her hand. Dropping a terrified Nilesy (who yelps), 

Lomadia swings her shotgun up to fire the second series of rounds into the Rat ambushing her. With a hiss, they nimbly duck the shot, crouching and springing up to slash at her with long, tapering fingernails.

The smell rolling off them belongs to a compost heap left out in the heat for a solid week or a rancid sewer teeming with muck; Lomadia chokes as the stench hits her full in the face.

Wanting to get away from the stench alone before it gets to her, she deftly punches the Rat in the face. Only a gas mask protects them from the punch. The mask caves in as her aching knuckles draw back. Their claws drag down her sleeve and off her own shield, sparing her face.

Her shield ripples as the sharpened nails skitter off it. Soft, pattering footsteps alert her of more unwanted company. The pitch black, persisting darkness is making it difficult to judge how many and she can’t afford to spend time trying to judge the exact numbers.

There’s not a moment to waste. She’s already firing where she thinks the sounds are coming from. Cursing from their foiled ambush, the Rat who’d slashed at her leaps back into the dark, trailing blood from their broken, askew mask.

Nilesy’s since stumbled to his feet, pale and eyes wide with fear, breathing hard to the point of hyperventilating. “Go hide,” She tells him over her shoulder. She can hear him finally stop gagging from the smell of the Rats, dry heaving instead.

“I’m not leaving you-” Nilesy begins to feebly protest.

“Nilesy!” Lomadia sharply says. Any notion of arguing is forgotten in favor of getting ready to fight, every sense sharpened tenfold in the dark.

A different Rat, smaller but armed with a gun attempts to shoot her. She rolls out of the way, the packed snow softening her landing. Once she’s upright, she snaps off a shot. A whimper indicates a successful hit. Blood splashes across the ground. Their gun lands elsewhere, forgotten.

That’s it, just like she’d been taught. Cover is her best friend. Open ground is the worst place to be caught in, as well as a corner with nowhere to run. Don’t stop moving either, that’ll just give them an opening and in a gunfight, that could be fatal.

Habits drilled into her from long ago kick in. Confident gloved hands ghost over her shoulders, pulling them into place, gently drawing her hands up. When Lomadia turns her head, she almost expects to see a freckled face grinning encouragingly at her. 

Shaking off the memory (nothing more than a nostalgic, painful distraction at this point, invoked by the circumstances), Lomadia angrily gestures to Nilesy to ‘go’, hoping that he’ll get the message without putting up a fight.

This isn’t about loyalty, it’s about _surviving_.

Footsteps, footsteps, footsteps, all around her, quick and light, the Rats never remaining still enough for her to hit any of them. Her only hope is to become a distraction so that Nilesy can get away.

Concentrating, Lomadia allows her hearing to guide her, not her eyes, forcing herself to forget the stench of the Rats. It’s a risky move, to blind herself like this even if her eyes are wide open. Her hand closes around a grenade, jiggling the pin free. 

She has exactly three seconds to get rid of it, knowing the fuse time off by heart from years of using the same grenade mod.

A tesla grenade is lobbed across the ground from her outstretched hand. The miniature concentration of loose electricity courses across the ground in a field lit up with blue lightning strikes. The scream of three Rats rend the night apart.

A shining, deadly beacon, it also provides her the light she needs to aim and shoot. Those precious seconds from the grenade runs its course by the time she spots the Rats flitting away, not at all like moths drawn to a flame. Nilesy takes the chance to sprint off up the hill, also using the light to see.

The Rat that lunges after him goes down, flopping awkwardly onto the ice. The six Rats left are regrouping, darting behind scenery and taking cover. 

Lomadia huffs, annoyed; how smart of them. They’ve likely realised that she’s not going to go down that easily with how she’d picked off several of their own.

The spent grenade sputters out at last, plunging her into darkness once more. She has three more grenades left. That’s three more chances of precious light.

Doubting that she’ll be able to catch any more of the bandits with that same trick, Lomadia’s mind races to figure out the best way to fight them.

She is indeed outnumbered. At the moment, her rakk can’t attack, despite possessing night vision that’s somewhat better than her own. She’s practically fighting blind, with her hearing and smell the only senses to aid her.

A thrown rock narrowly misses her shoulder by several centimetres. It smashes into the ground behind her, harmlessly rolling away. If she’d moved her head to the side by that much, she’d have been protected by her shield but that would have opened up a gap to attack her.

Ducking more rocks being lobbed her way, she darts towards the walkway, switching to a rifle. Her feet pound the walkway, the sound jarring, echoing off the mountain walls. Falling for the ruse, the Rats hear her racing away and follow, forgetting about Nilesy.

“Leave him, he’s too scrawny, all bones and not enough meat,” One less gullible Rat hisses to the others who hiss back in agreement. 

The menacing hisses slither at her from across the walkway. She’s glad that they’re focusing on her; now she can concentrate on fighting her way out of this.

One Rat silently springs out of the dark in front of her, gun poised to fire. Her stomach violently twists in her gut as the rifle in her hand kicks once, twice, three times for their head to come apart in a mess akin to fruit being thrown against pavement.

Trying not to slip in the crimson mess that’s their exploded head, Lomadia races back towards the way she and Nilesy first emerged into the Fridge, back towards the open double doors holding the lift.

Muffled sounds echo from a gap leading to some other area. Not able to dwell on it at the risk of forgoing her concentration, Lomadia takes cover behind a flattened car, reloading while she can. Her fingers are numb from the cold, refusing to fold down properly. 

“Come on,” She grounds out, managing to slip ammo into her gun. Adopting a familiar crouch that could become an evasive roll in a second, she tries to control her panting. 

Going without sleep for this long is taking its toll on her, in the form of tiring out when she shouldn’t be, plus feeling overexertion gnawing at her arm and leg muscles. The cold isn’t helping either.

The footsteps are spreading out to search the wreckages. It seems like the Rats are also at a disadvantage in the dark. However, dawn is on its way. The only comfort to Lomadia is that she only has to keep it up until Nilesy’s free, even if she perishes in the attempt.

Two sets of footsteps are coming towards her, picking their way around the ruins. The wind’s changed direction, a stroke of luck that brings her the smell of the bandits and hiding her own (if she has any; she’s not sure if these bandits can smell past their own foul body odor).

The tesla grenade landing by their feet takes the two Rats by surprise. It goes off a second too late because one of them cries out that they’ve spotted her before the electricity deprives them of their voice.

Lomadia vaults over the ruined car and begins to run towards the other way out of the Fridge. If she’s lucky, she can make it to entrance and booby-trap it, buying her even more time to escape. 

The odds of fighting out of this are dropping; the dark can’t hide her forever, plus she can’t evade or fight indefinitely, the issue of being outnumbered cropping up again.

Her efforts are hampered by the deep snow pillowing the ground, slowing her down to a hobbling walk. Every step sends cold, wet and infuriating snow all the way up her thighs. The feel of it seeps through her shield.

They’ve already found her. She can hear them shouting to one another. The remaining four Rats are concentrating on her. Lomadia pushes the thought of escaping to one side and turns to confront her pursuers.

Open ground separates them. The Rats are stalking towards her, starved forms hunched low, with clawed hands bearing guns. They raise the guns to fire at her, murmuring louder and louder in anticipation of a meal. The sounds of gunfire are amplified by the cliffs surrounding them.

As bullets whizz by her, Lomadia throws her second to last grenade, uttering a shriek (almost broken, rendered incoherent by her panting) as she does so.

The grenade sails over ignorant heads, coming to rest on the walkway to detonate. Despite the electricity finding nothing to grasp, it lights up the walkway. Her rakk dives out of the sky, wings pulled tight against its sides, right into the midst of the bandits. 

They react with alarm, guns forgotten in favor of scrambling out of the way as her rakk lands on the ground, jaws ripping apart the one bandit pinned down by its weight. 

The Rats begin to scratch at her enraged rakk, furious at the interruption to the hunt. Its spiked tail slams into one of them, sending their head sailing into a rock, dazing them. Their gun slides out of their hand to slide out of the way on the ice.

Not wasting the distraction, Lomadia raises her gun to fire on the fleeing Rats. It shears a leg at the ankle, collapsing one. They’re unable to crawl away in time as her rakk alights on them, jaw dipping to viciously maul them, the remains of its other meal splattering the ice and snow. The screams follow the path of the gunshots.

A low cry behind her, uttered in a familiar voice sends a shard of dread right into her heart. 

When Lomadia turns her head, a struggling Nilesy is being dragged from the gap between the double doors by his scarf by a Rat. The Rat is straining, attempting to pull him towards an dank, waiting trapdoor.

If Nilesy gets taken, she’ll never see him again.

 _No_.

She’d _sworn_.

With a mighty effort that almost makes her thighs seize up, Lomadia wrenches her legs free from the snow, tearing across the space towards them. 

The Rat spots her a few seconds too late, out of the corner of their eyes. 

She’s already viciously slamming the butt of her rifle into the back of their head. Every single ounce of rage is concentrated in the move. Her judgement is sound, unclouded by it, broadcasting the intent to kill.

One concentrated blow shatters the Rat’s goggles, the sound ringing out like ice cracking. Another sends them sprawling onto the snow, letting go of Nilesy (who flees out of the way). A third blow lands on their arms being flung over their head. 

Bone snaps under the fury of her attacks, driving them up against a wall, spindly legs trying to find purchase.

“Please s-stop, I’ll-” The Rat begs, whimpering, the ‘s’ in their words slurring from blood starting to leak into their brain, courtesy of a cracked skull and torn skin.

Disgusted, after everything that's happened, Lomadia doesn’t bother with a final blow. Her gun finishes the assault for her. The dead Rat sinks to the ground, blood from the bullets going straight through their head and chest. Crimson paints the wall they slump against, hands falling limply into their lap.

Nilesy is wrapping his loosened scarf back around his neck with shaking hands. He’s staring at the dead body past Lomadia, speechless with the horror of bearing witness to another murder, even if it's one done in the name of protecting him.

Lomadia whirls on the spot to confront him. A look that could have melted snow and metal is thrown at Nilesy. It makes him feel worse for waiting for her by the door, ready to close it the second she'd made it in.

It’d only been bad luck that a Rat had found him when he’d tried to hide, movement giving him away. He knows it’s pointless to explain to her when she’s this pissed.

The brutal murder’s done her no extra favours. She hasn’t even lost her temper yet, which is the ironic part. Lomadia storms over to him, snow parting under her feet like a shoal of fish avoiding a crabiod’s pincers.

They’re the same height but in that moment, he’s dwarfed by her, rage drawing her up taller.

“Why didn’t you _run_?” Lomadia grounds out, every word a blow. She might as well have shouted. He flinches from the force of her words, his head dropping to stare at the ground.

Instantly, she regrets it, shaking hands busying with reloading. Her frame is tense from trying to suppress all her leftover rage that’s running hot and violent like lava in her veins. 

No single word can capture her current mess of emotions in how how close she'd come to losing him, all the effort spent in willingly giving her life for his, only to have him stupidly risk it by waiting for her.

He can’t answer her (what would he even have said to try to appease her?). Through the open trapdoor that they’ve both forgotten about (her in her rage and him with his fear), two emerging Rats let out identical howls of anguish upon seeing their dead friend. 

Driven by loss, they barrel towards them without a shred of care.

Lomadia’s last grenade is lobbed at her feet. She tackles Nilesy out of the way, the two of them rolling out of the way. His glasses slide off his face as they hit the ground together, cushioned by the snow. The lightning touches the heel of her boot, sapping her shield dry. 

Nilesy takes the chance to push her off, scrambling towards the door without being told to do so, perhaps having taken her words to heart. Lomadia mimics him. However, she’s stumbling from the several seconds it takes for her tingling legs to sync back up with her brain and body.

One Rat falls to the grenade (and their pain and anguished scream will haunt his and her dreams for days, alongside others). The other simply darts around the radius, bearing down on Nilesy and Lomadia with curved claws shining with a sickly green.

Instead of going for Lomadia (perhaps knowing that she values Nilesy more than her own life), they go for him.

Lomadia doesn’t know how she’d done it, her thighs burning and itching from the sheer effort; she’s flung herself between the claw and Nilesy, her back exposed. Lomadia feels the icy sensation of claws sinking into her back, scraping the skin open. A heartbeat later, the pain slams into her with all the force of a freight train.

She screams, dropping her gun, body arching in an attempt get away from the source of the pain. The Rat peels the claws from her back with a crude, drawn out motion that makes the edges of the claws drag against the skin it’s caught up against. 

It lights her back up with further agony. Lomadia’s gasping, biting off another scream as her eyes snap shut to try to separate the sensation; it’s no good, the pain is too great for her to block out.

Far too busy drawing out the torture, the Rat misses Nilesy catching the gun Lomadia’s dropped.

He slams the butt of it right into the Rat’s masked face, feeling the impact traveling up his numbing arms. The Rat’s head snaps back. The momentum of his move has freed her from the claw. Lomadia whirls around to retaliate by viciously backhanding them, an unstoppable force of nature hell bent on returning just as much pain as they’d inflicted on her.

Before Lomadia can forget about the gun he’s holding entirely, Nilesy’s pressing against her. Shaking the whole time (from fear or something else entirely), he’s shoving the gun into her open palms, pulling her stiff fingers into the right places.

A distant memory lodges up against her heart, just for a second before it’s sliding past, into the oblivion created by the pain.

He pulls her hands up, the barrel aimed right at the Rat’s face, claws swinging up to slap the gun out of their hands. Nilesy’s finger rests atop Lomadia’s index one. With a single pull, the gun’s trigger depresses with a sound that carries all the way to the other side of the lake. 

It takes an eternity for the Rat’s body to hit the ground with a soft thump, muffled by the trodden on snow.

“Nilesy,” Lomadia breathes as Nilesy draws away from her, staring blankly at his bare hands as though he’s unable to believe his own actions and nerve. “We need to get out of here.” 

Her back is on fire. Blood is pouring down her back, wetting the skin around it and her shredded shirt. Cold air kisses the open wounds, making her shiver. She can’t see any of it but she knows that it’s not pretty, nor will it be easy to take care of.

It’s fortunate that the claw hadn’t reached her spine, severing it and paralysing her (which had probably been the bandit’s intent).

Her rakk ambles across the ground towards them on its wings, completely covered in gore. Nilesy shrinks away from it as it draws closer, staining the ground with its approach. The thick, heavy smell of a fresh slaughter saturates the air. Lomadia absently pets the rakk for a job well done, carefully avoiding any parts of it that are stained.

The sounds of fighting in the distance are drawing closer. Explosions, screams, yelling, grenades and gunfire from a conflict add a new layer of urgency. Flashes and columns of fire light up the distance, escaping the peak to let them know that they’re no longer alone in the Fridge.

Nilesy nods, finding his voice at last. He picks up his glasses from where they’d dropped in the snow, not bothering to wipe them off. One of the lens is missing, shards of it littering the snow. The other is cracked. No amount of superglue will fix it. “Let’s go.”

They can’t stay in the Fridge. More Rats could arrive any second and he doubts Lomadia is in any condition to keep fighting, even if she’s doing it to protect him. Her rakk also can’t take on that many enemies by itself. 

There’s also no need to get started on how his pacifism could also get the three of them killed if they continue to stick around.

Lomadia nods, silently agreeing with him. She shakes her head when he offers her a helping hand that the cold’s bitten, leaving his hands numb to the point of not feeling the skin at all. He turns away.

Nilesy’s only taken ten steps forward when the sound of someone falling onto the snow makes him stop in his tracks. Mister Owl is making low, helpless, keening sounds, nudging a prone Lomadia in the side over and over again, it's crest flattened against its head.

He turns around, both feet shuffling in the snow. Lomadia has fallen onto her side, her gun clattering on the path where the snow gives way to the metal ground. His heart squeezes so tightly that he almost blacks out there and then.

Before he’s even registered it, he’s already crouching by her, his hands gently rolling her onto her back. Her back coats his knees and shorts with blood, warm, thick and a brilliant red that makes him want to hurl, throat closing up. Her rakk starts to flap and screech above him, wings flapping and tail lashing, flinging snow out of the way in its panic.

Gently maneuvering Lomadia’s head into his lap, Nilesy gently touches her face. Even with the cold plaguing the pads of his fingers, he can feel her body temperature. 

She’s burning up, whether from the fighting, overexertion or something else, he doesn’t know. “Lomadia! Lomadia! Wake up,” He starts, panicking as well because this can’t be _happening_.

The cold of his fingers elicit a flutter of eyelids. “Nilesy, just go,” Lomadia breathes, her voice a whisper. 

Her eyes drift open, only just long enough to gaze into his own before they slide shut, the yellow eyes of her eyes lost. Unlike her body, her hands are icy cold from the snow when he grabs one, immediately dropping it from the sheer contrast between hers and his.

“No, no, no, don’t do this, I’m not leaving you,” He desperately begs (almost shouting), casting around for some way to warm her up without stripping down. 

His fumbling fingers brush against his scarf. Tearing it off in a blind panic, he tucks it around her neck. The scratchy fabric bunches, a creature’s nest built around her face. If it’s helped him, it can help her.

Nilesy moves to stand. One hand is curled around one of her arms; he manages to get her onto one of his shoulder. The result of that is her feet are now dragging on the ground.

While she’s not that heavy, Lomadia’s weight causes Nilesy to sink closer to the ground, almost buckling onto his knees once more. Gritting his teeth, he forces his knees to straighten as his broken glasses begin to slide down his nose.

Her breathing is becoming shallower as he hikes her higher up onto his back with her arms haphazardly thrown across his shoulders.

Why is he so fucking _useless_?

He can barely take a step without wanting to sink into the ground, red-faced and muscles clamouring to drop the dead weight already, already worn from all the running, so why is he torturing himself more with this? He’s so unused to bearing any weight greater than his own that he almost drops her after the third step, stumbling forward. 

It’s because of his stubbornness that he remains on his feet, still bearing her.

He’ll fucking haul her all the way to Sanctuary Hole if he has to, even if his knees break or leg muscles end up tearing. Fortunately, he doesn’t need to go that the entire way. 

The only thing he needs to do is reach the bottom of the slope at Three Horns, where a Catch-A-Station is located, get a technical and drive it over with her loaded in the back.

The question is, will Lomadia make it?

She’s gone so still on his back, her head nuzzling against one of his shoulders. One of her braids has come loose, the tie almost falling off, blue ends flapping with the wind. Her rakk’s picked up her gun in its mouth, shuffling behind him with its odd winged gait. 

“Why can’t you help more?” He shouts at it. It droops. His voices echoes around the cavern, the word ‘help’ reverberating throughout the mountain. 

Disturbed shapes above them flap against the rocks there. Pebbles skitter down to rain upon them. He doesn’t care if it’s going to bring down an avalanche down upon their heads. It can fucking try, but it should know first that he is _not_ going to let Lomadia die here.

Nilesy doesn’t bother glaring at her rakk, continuing to support Lomadia towards the exit, one fucking step at a fucking time.

The wind brings him voices, from across the lake. It causes him to throw a backwards glance, over his shoulder, more to see if he has to run if it’s more Rats.

Figures dressed in red are shouting to one another, a few of them nudging the dead bodies of the Rats with boots and bayoneted guns. Someone spots him. One of the figures with a red bandanna tied around their neck trips in the snow towards him.

Willing to fight if he has to, Nilesy turns to confront them, the rakk bristling protectively with its crest raised.

He picks up the gun it spits out into his hand, swinging it up to point right at the bandit’s face (even if his hand is shaking like mad and he can feel a limp Lomadia sliding off his shoulder).

\--

The ceiling is painted a cream color that's beginning to lose its shine, tiles rigidly squeezed together in a pleasing, orderly way. Lomadia’s never seen this ceiling before. It’s the first thing she sees upon waking, both of her eyes flying open.

White, clean sheets cover the lower half of her body. A thick blanket is piled on top of it. She’d managed to almost kick it off the bed-she’s in a bed of some kind. The foam mattress melds to her body, dipping from her weight.

What strikes her as uncanny is the expectant silence in the room. It’s kept at bay by the blond haired person who has their back turned it her, clipboard loosely held in one bare hand. The pen they’re clicking in the other hand fills the room with a noise that makes her want to throw something at them.

She tries to speak. All that comes out is a pained grunt. Her back is killing her. Her grunt gets their attention. Lomadia fixes a questioning gaze on them when they turn to her. 

Any sluggishness from her aching body is draining out of her, bit by bit. Well, that’s no traveling for a while. Oddly, that doesn’t bother her.

“Good morning,” They greet her in a neutral tone. The clipboard is abandoned onto the metal trolley by her bedside.

Her mouth finally cooperates, despite being dry to the point of making her sound hoarse, her voice scratching its way free. “Where am I?”

“My clinic in Three Horns,” They tell her in a clipped voice, pausing to see if it’ll ring any bells. Seeing that it means nothing to her by the resulting silence, they coolly add, “I am Lalnable. Can you sit up?”

Unable to respond, she can only let a nod speak for her. Trying to sit up makes her back explode with pain, a fresh claw raking across the area. It’s nothing like she’s ever experienced before, even if she’d steeled herself for it. It begins in the middle of her spine, radiating outwards all the way to her skin.

It feels like somebody is trying to separate it from her body by holding it open with clamps and with utmost care, are extracting every bone, one by one, with pliers. The skin back there is on fire, hot from the inside. Being stuck on her back is what’s likely magnifying the pain.

Lalnable leans over, his hand hovering by her, posing a question that she already gives the answer to in the form of another nod. His hand firmly curls around her upper arm, slowly helping her up.

She lets out a hiss of pain through the corner of her mouth when the pain lances through her insides, right through her gut. It slides sideways to plague her back once she’s managed to settle back on the pillow. The change from horizontal to vertical makes her shaky and light-headed, as with the effort of the transition.

It hurts so much that she would have curled up, if it hadn’t been at the risk of making it even worse. Several agonising seconds (they felt more like hours) later, the pain lessens, enough for her to work out that there are likely stitches or bandages in place.

Still hanging onto her arm, Lalnable fetches a bottle of water from the trolley. The lid is already unscrewed. To Lomadia’s annoyance, her hands tremor slightly as she takes the bottle from him. He only lets go once she’s managed to take it from him without any signs of dropping it onto the bed.

The comfortable clothes she’s in are colored a pleasing shade of mint green, consisting of a short-sleeved shirt. From the way the elastic easily shifts on her hips, she’s probably wearing matching pants. 

The notion that he might have had to strip her (let alone get rid of her shirt and bra) is met with a matter-of-factness.

Lomadia only notices the clothes when she returns the bottle to Lalnable, who leaves it on the table within her reach, next to her digistruct modules. Reaching up to feel her hair reveals that somebody had tied them back in her usual braids, neater than usual. She definitely remembers them coming untied- yesterday’s events flood her mind.

“Where’s Nilesy?” She asks Lalnable, her low voice now less hoarse. Lalnable’s since turned to pick up his clipboard to contemplate it once more.

Without looking at her, he responds, “Sanctuary Hole.” The memories stop, leaving her short of breath. Nilesy had made it safely to their destination. That still doesn’t answer of how she’d arrived at the clinic and is not dead.

“Lalnable?”

“Yes?”

“What happened?” She is hesitant to know what went down after she’d passed out, feeling her body seize up, throwing her into unconsciousness, her last thought being that of Nilesy and seeing his face peering into her own with a look of fear and panic. 

Knowing will help (it has to, willful ignorance has never done anybody good).

Lalnable puts the clipboard down to regard her steadily. Perhaps he didn't deal with such level headed people much in his clinic. That’s understandable, given the types of people who walked through its doors.

He takes a deep breath and begins to calmly explain to her, “Your friend Nilesy was brought here by…” Here, his brow furrows, his tone reluctant. “An acquaintance of mine.” He appears to shake off whatever’s bothering him off to continue, returning to his former tone. “You were bleeding out, unconscious and refusing to respond. According to the bloodwork, it turns out you were poisoned.”

If he’s expecting her to flinch at the blunt observation, she defied his expectations by matching his frown. “With what?” 

Her curiosity has him raising an impressed eyebrow. He glances at the clipboard before watching her again. “A toxin derived from of the necrophage plant. Plague Rats use it to paralyse their victims for the other Rats.”

The implications there makes her imagine some poor traveler being dragged off, unable to lift a single finger to defend themselves. The traveler is replaced by the memory of Nilesy under attack, the Rat dragging him off- her heart skips a beat (make that two, just because).

He must be safe. The alternative is too much for her to imagine, let alone try to conceive a single thought about it.

“Fortunately, I had an antidote prepared.” Lalnable’s hand deftly plucks a tiny glass vial (that’s the size of her little finger) off the trolley. It’s mostly empty, save for a few drops of clear liquid trickling down the sides. He puts it back once she’s glanced at it. “After injecting it, it was just a matter of stabilizing you.”

Now that he mentions it, her upper left arm aches, just the tiniest bit to indicate a shot. She hadn’t noticed that because of her back taking up most of her attention. “Thank you.”

Rather than smile, blush or anything to indicate appreciating her thanks, he softly scoffs. “No, thank _you_ , for not dying. I’d hate to tarnish my clinic’s record with another death.”

Right, that makes Lomadia want to grab the clipboard and clobber him around the head with it until all her stitches split. Since she doubts she can do that in her current state, she just settles on deadeyeing him instead. Well, he had saved her life.

Lalnable’s lips twist into a satisfied smirk. “Since you’re awake, I’ll let Nilesy know he can come in now.”

“He’s been outside the whole time?” She sharply asks, changing her mind about liking him. Lalnable says nothing, heading over to the door and opening it. It remains open as he steps out.

Five minutes later, Nilesy barges into the room, out of breath. “Lomadia!”

“No running or yelling in the clinic!” is Lalnable’s distant and exasperated shout.

“Calm down, I’m fine-” Lomadia hastily interrupts. She’d rather Nilesy not get thrown out because of her in his rush to reunite.

“No, you’re not, you’ve got a great big scar on your back and it’s my fault-” Warm words are spilling out of him, washing over her. 

Nilesy looks like he’s been up all right, red eyed and- his _glasses_. They’re no longer black, replaced by an olive color.

After staring for a few stunned moments, Lomadia finds herself chuckling, dipping her head. “Oh my days,” She says under her breath.

“What’s so funny?” He demands, frowning.

“After all the effort we went to, to find your glasses, they broke,” She explains once she’s stopped chuckling. One final (embarrassingly high-pitched) giggle escapes before she can stop it. 

She’s so glad to see him. Hearing that he’s alive doesn’t replace actually seeing him again in person; that and earlier events are perhaps finally taking an emotional toll on her.

Confusion flits over Nilesy’s face. It’s followed by a tentative smile that blooms into a hesitant grin. “I- yeah, you’re right, what gives, what kind of glasses they were, breaking just like that.” Just like that, he’s chuckling too, drawn in by hers.

Lomadia regards him warmly, lifting her head with a soft smile. “I quite like the color of those. Those are much more nicer,” She compliments. The black is rather last century.

“They’re actually a spare pair,” Nilesy admits, one hand pushing said glasses up further his nose by the curved bridge. Other than the glasses, she can make out no signs of visible harm on him from their disastrous escape from the Fridge.

He shifts on the spot under her scrutinising gaze. “I wasn’t hurt because of you,” He softly says, his eyes watering with gratitude and oh dear, he’s sniffling.

Her heart grows, expanding with a warmth that dulls the stubborn back pain for several moments. In that time, Lomadia reaches for him, holding her arms out wide. Nilesy practically falls into her waiting arms, hugging her so tightly (without touching her back to avoid hurting her further) that it seems like he’ll never let her go ever again.

All good things must come to an end. She can feel the pain regathering to renew its attempts to saw her into two, cutting the hug short.

“We can hug more later,” Lomadia affectionately mumbles into the smooth strands of black hair tickling her nose (it smells of hospital soap, a sharp, instantly recognisable, dry clinical scent).

Nilesy is loathe to let her go, drawing away and up to his full height (not much of a drastic difference), his eyes losing their watery look. “You owe me five more hugs for scaring me back there,” He declares, not at all disappointed. His voice wavers the tiniest bit.

“Sorry to interrupt, but is the rakk outside yours?” Lalnable sticks his head into the room, looking put off. “It’s been trying to get into my clinic all day,” He grumbles.

Lomadia and Nilesy shoot each other mildly concerned and alarmed looks. “I’ll go tell Mister Owl you’re awake, even if it won’t get it,” Nilesy volunteers, his voice going high-pitched from trying not to laugh.

“Please do, before it breaks a window.” As Lalnable walks off, they can hear him muttering grumpily, “And _somebody_ stole all the skag jerky from my fridge. It’d better not be Parvis again…”

“It was me who stole it. I had to feed Mister Owl somehow,” Nilesy quickly whispers in a conspiratorial tone, his eyebrows comically raised. Lomadia suppresses a snort at his daring. Nilesy leans back. “I’ll be back soon!” He leaves the room at a brisk walk.

Fifteen minutes later, a black haired figure peeks into her room. Lomadia only knows because all she sees is a flash of red and black at the doorway. Curious, she cranes her head to the side, attempting to see who it is. 

“You can come in,” Lomadia calls out, hesitant. They could be here for someone else and have the wrong room. Not many people she knows are that tall or shy. The person hiding inhales sharply, the sound audible even from where she's sitting. “I can see your bandanna and the tray you’re holding,” She pointedly adds.

They admit defeat, slinking into her room. They’re bearing a plastic, light blue tray dented on one corner. At a glance, there’s cornflakes, plastic spoon and a small box of milk plus another bottle of water. A note with ‘finish your other bottle first’ in neat, cramped handwriting is stuck on the lid.

Her visitor pushes a wheeled table over her bed so that they can carefully slide the tray onto it. They grin uncertainly at her.

“And who might you be?” She politely inquiries. Up close, the only word she can use to perfectly describe them is ‘scruffy’.

“I’m Parvis!” Parvis brightly replies. Ah, he must be the acquaintance Lalnable spoke of earlier. Only somebody who can look that cheerful could probably stand him. “And you’re Lomadia.” He gives her a reverential look as though she’s famous.

“Did you bring Nilesy and I here?” Bemused and mildly baffled by the way he’s treating her, Lomadia picks a lone cornflake out of the bowl to eat it. It crunches in her mouth, more to give her something to do because she has no idea how to behave when someone is looking at her like that.

“You could say that!” He says with a half-hearted attempt to sound modest, puffing his chest out anyway. “It was a bloody long drive down from the Fridge to here and-”

“All he did was drive several hundred metres, which is hardly a feat to be proud of,” Lalnable dryly notes, entering the room. “I see you haven’t dropped the tray on her. Good job.” The latter, sarcastic sentence is directed at Parvis.

Parvis reacts by pouting, reminding her of a child wanting to prove their own ability to help. “Hey, I said I could do it and I did!”

“What were you doing in the Fridge, by the way?” Lalnable asks, fixing Parvis with a suspicious, searching look that has Parvis grinning even wider.

“Killing Rats!” He cheerfully says, peering at Lomadia. That explains it; he’s impressed she’d survived the attack. Lomadia carefully tries not to react in any way, shifting on the bed, pretending her back is responsible for the move. “It was about time we got rid of the survivors in the Fridge, what with the dam invasion a while back-”

“I wasn’t here for that and I doubt I want to hear bandit history,” Lalnable interrupts in a disdainful tone that does not dent Parvis’ enthusiasm for attempting to educate him (or her) on local history.

Lomadia’s slit the miniature carton of milk open, tipping it into her bowl of cornflakes. Lifting her arm makes the skin stretch on her back, eliciting a grimace. 

Lalnable notices, scowling. “I got sidetracked by Parvis.” The way he says it makes it sound like Parvis is entirely responsible. “I doubt you’d want to either,” He pointedly says to Lomadia. 

She’d have disagreed if she could have. Any bit of local history is worth hearing, given how her guidebook (outdated and falling to bits now) doesn’t cover them.

“It’s not my fault you’re a sucker for a pretty face,” Parvis quips, waggling both eyebrows. He’s still looking at Lomadia, daring her to ask him more.

“Who said yours was pretty?” Lalnable shoots back, handing Lomadia several capsules encased in their wrapping. To her, he says, “Painkillers, for when the pain gets too bad. You also have some more visitors outside, if you’re like to see them?”

“Please,” Lomadia says, accepting the painkillers. She stashes them on her bedside table next to her modules, swirling her cornflakes around. 

Getting the hint, Parvis beams at her. “It was nice to meet you, Lomadia. Let me know if you need anything, I work here sometimes-” Lalnable’s hand is already on his arm to bodily drag him out into the corridor. 

“Let her eat, and stop trying to impress my patient,” He grouses. Not at all saddened by the forced, early departure from her room, Parvis manages to wave at her before he stumbles out, courtesy of the hand with a vice grip on him.

She waves back, taking the time to eat a few mouthfuls of cereal. That had certainly been something. Her hunger is not an issue, the pain dampening it. Still, she’ll try not to waste any of the food.

Nilesy sticks his head in, followed by a worried Zoeya, plus an impossibly tall, skinny person dressed in a green, fur-lined jacket, the hood pulled up over their head.

“Zoeya!” Zoeya rushes forward to hug her as best as she can without hurting her or dislodging the table. The stranger moves to hang back in the doorway, arms crossed over their chest. Nilesy nods at them as he passes. 

“Lomadia, I heard about what happened from Ravs and rushed over here and oh, are you eating now?” Zoeya pulls back, spotting the cereal. Cheeks going pink, she awkwardly adds, “We’ll just wait outside-”

“You can stay, I don’t think Lalnable minds you being here while I’m eating,” Lomadia quickly reassures her. Nilesy is investigating the painkillers, replacing them once he’s done. The stranger continues to watch from where they’re standing with a bored air.

“Oh, that’s right! Say ‘hi’ to my new assistant!” Zoeya gestures to the stranger with a beckoning wave of her hand. “Don’t be shy!” They shake their head, appearing content to remain by the door. “Fine, but you’ll have to do it later,” She firmly says. They shrug. “Anyway, how’s your…?” Zoeya points to Lomadia’s back.

“It hurts less,” Lomadia truthfully tells her. “I have painkillers to take if I need to.”

“No, you have to take them if you’re hurting, that’s what they’re for!” Zoeya is already picking up the bottle of water on the table to impatiently hand it to her.

“I agree with her, if it’s hurting, you should take them,” Nilesy agrees. He snaps a pill free and drops it into her hand. “Lalnable forgot to tell you earlier but they’ll make you drowsy.”

“Surely you’re not staying to watch me sleep,” Lomadia points out. Zoeya and Nilesy grin. She sighs. “Well, I’m not going to stop you.” 

The pill goes down easily, satisfying her audience of two (three, if she counts Zoeya’s assistant, though she doubts they’re interested in watching her eat). 

Zoeya tries to spoonfeed Lomadia her cereal, with Nilesy snatching the spoon away to do so himself. It’s only after Lalnable threatens to shoo them out (only to quickly duck out when Zoeya’s assistant glances at him) that the two stop bickering. They start to fill her in on what she’d missed while passed out.

It’s only midway through the retelling of the escape (that Nilesy’s telling, complete with sound effects and wild, exaggerated gestures) when Lomadia begins to feel drowsy, yawning.

“Time to go,” Zoeya says, soothingly pulling the blanket and sheets up higher so Lomadia doesn’t have to reach down.

Nilesy expertly fluffs her pillow up, replacing it behind her. “We’ll be back later,” Nilesy says, smiling. The stranger in the back pushes off the wall they’d been leaning against, leaving the room first.

“Thank you for visiting,” Lomadia manages to murmur before she puts her head down, shifting to be as comfortable as possible. Zoeya tiptoes towards the door.

Once she’s gone, Nilesy drops an envelope on the beside table. The last thing Lomadia sees is Nilesy softly closing the door behind him. She wonders what’s inside the letter and decides that she’ll find out once she’s woken up.

\--

Lomadia, 

You have my eternal gratitude for safely escorting Nilesy to Sanctuary Hole. I heard about what happened up at the Fridge. 

As a token of my appreciation, you’re bloody entitled to a drink and free board at the Crooked Caber, whenever you’re in town. It’s not much but it’s all I can offer. That is, unless you’d like to ‘negotiate’?

I’ll drop by soon with Nilesy and sorry for having to pass on a message to you in this way. Don’t tell Lalnable we’re planning on having a small party to celebrate you getting well either.

Looking forward to meeting you again soon, 

Ravs

**Author's Note:**

> (there’s no place like home.)
> 
> the title of this fic is a reference to poem ‘the owl and the pussycat’ by edward lear! what a great poem. thematically appropriate fic titles are great. still, it doesn’t quite have the same ring as the punny titles (get it). thank you to teagstime and doublearrows for editing and their input!
> 
> there’s going to be a pretty long ramble going up about arsenal being trans on the borderlandscast blog, so keep an eye out for that. it’ll answer how him being trans in the au came about and progressed to where he currently is, with his transition.
> 
> in regards to the scenes involving him and lomadia, i hope i’ve written it in a respectful manner. it wasn’t an easy topic; the scene underwent numerous revisions before the one that i’m satisfied with emerged. it’s not intended to reflect everybody’s experiences with being trans, since everybody is different. the choices depicted here are result of one character’s personal perspective, attitude and choices.
> 
> him coming out to lomadia has a deeper context to it, in the sense that where he thought that he was originally okay with not being able to finish his transition? turns out that he’s not. i’ll talk more about that in the ramble.
> 
> lomadia’s friendship with arsenal lasted for a long time, longer than either of them expected. the two have never quite forgotten about each other. lomadia rarely travels to the east coast, since it holds nothing but painful memories. she’s only just getting over how their friendship ended by the time she meets nilesy. that’s about several months of intense isolation.
> 
> that’s nothing as extreme as rythian’s where he took five years to return to sanctuary hole. that said, lomadia has him completely beat in total distance walked on foot. one gets the sense that she’s unnecessarily punishing herself when it’d just been one unfortunate event after another. where lomadia was socially awkward before, her isolation’s made it even worse. lomadia didn’t think she needed or wanted a new friend in the form of Nilesy when staying in his hotel.
> 
> arsenal and nilesy are similar in that the two simply inserted themselves into lomadia’s life so smoothly that she doesn’t realise they're friends until much later and oops, it’s too late, they're now good friends. the joy of writing lomadia is that i can take a slower approach in regards as to how friendship’s crept up on her (even with mister owl) and others. I hope i’ve conveyed that with the pacing and every scene in this fic.
> 
> lomadia is one of those people who strives to be there as much as possible for her friends. while she doesn’t explicitly show it as much given her socially awkward and introverted nature, she does care an extraordinary amount.
> 
> sometimes she puts them first rather than herself. her parting with arsenal has given her a recurring fear about what will happen if she’s not there for them; she now makes it a point to let them know that she does care about them, even if she doesn’t always show it. putting others first rather than herself does have its downsides. i’ll leave you to work out what’s involved with that.
> 
> the nilesy who pops up in this fic is only beginning to come to terms with the unpredictable symptoms of ptsd as a result of ‘how to influence bandits and befriend them’. he met Lomadia shortly after meeting ravs, rythian and teep. 
> 
> he has an inkling of what lomadia and ravs did to the people who hurt him and feels a tiny bit guilty for the role he played in their fates. mostly, though, he’s glad his two friends took matters into their own hands on his behalf. nilesy and lomadia still have more to their respective arcs, so they’ll definitely pop up in other fic!
> 
> this was a longer than usual ramble, given what happened in the fic. I do apologise for that but if you did read this whole thing, thank you very much, and for reading. the doodles by the quaint siins are posted in the tag over [here](http://borderlandscast.tumblr.com/tagged/beyond-the-borderlands%3A-they-danced-by-the-light-of-the-moon), so definitely check those out.


End file.
